I was nine when I spoke to my dad for the last time. I’d forgotten to thank him for a birthday present, I believe it was a favourite book.
“You forgot, huh?” he said on the phone.
Long silence came from the other side of the call. Being a sensitive kid back then, my tears started to swell in my eyes. I had a very strong gut feeling that my nine years as his only son was about to be gutted.
“Dad…?”
“Ungrateful child!” he yelled a thousand miles and two months divorce away.
I did not remember much about what happened next. However, I do remember my mom grabbing the phone and screaming back at him, “What did you say? What did you say to him?” until she was crying as hard as I was.
10 years passed and he’d finally succeeded in drinking himself to his own death. I stood in front of his dead body in the morgue where he laid, without a single tear or guilt left for him. Still… out of everything, I still found some words to say for the last time I will see him.
“Thanks for the great book, Dad….”
With no guilt over his death, I turned and walk away from the coffin with a smile on my face knowing that he was now in a better place.
