How I Choose To Remember

The house was full of children, men, women, and widows. The children who were always present during the Christmas and New Year season. Maybe even more numerous. The men and women at home were definitely more, no doubt: my uncles, aunts, some cousins, and a few nieces and nephews. Almost everyone was present. Those who weren't had very important places to be. Home was home. But this was not a seasonal period; it was early September, 2021.

Unlike during the holidays, the presence of the entire family - both those I knew well and those I didn't - swarming like flies around a large, festering wound, was not caused by something good. Dad's chair sat emptily consecrated. His room was padlocked, the key in our firstborn's bunch of keys. His sitting room - almost twice as large as the general sitting room - was clean, with a standing frame displaying his pictures, name, age, date of birth and death, and a Bible quotation at the bottom. It stood in an isolated corner of the room. My father had died some days earlier, in my arms, and my brother had begun asking me to provide my tribute to him. Thoughts of what to say, or how to structure it - whether to write a letter, as was traditional, or go my own way by writing a poem - troubled me. I had so much to say that could fill an entire pamphlet if I were to be fully honest. For days, I left the pamphlet maker in suspense, not submitting anything. In the end, I just dropped 'something', so the space that was reserved for me wouldn't remain empty.

However, I felt burdened and burned by the words I would have written, especially when I saw the words that weren't mine fill the space meant for my tribute. At last, I picked up my notebook, which I call my diary, and began sketching words into it. I poured the memories I had of my father. I haven't written much, nor have I written all that I have to say, nor will I.
But one thing is certain: good things never leave us completely; they sometimes stay behind in small packages.