The Art of Paper Boats

I know this is hopeless. Writing to you. It's been three months.

But I can't let go.

My friends dodge the subject by avoiding my gaze, looking at their feet. Mom says it's not healthy, that I should stop spending every waking second staring at that picture of your arms wrapped around me.

I say I have a right to miss you.

I've always been more than Addy to you—I've been your Addy. Every day, you made me feel special. You dropped everything and ran to scoop me up in your arms. I don't think I ever told you just how much that meant to me. I should’ve told you while I had the chance. 

I found a list in your journal last week. The one with the azalea flower on the cover, the one that overflowed with your drawings. I remember resting my head on your chest, listening to your heart beating, letting my eyes droop as I watched your light-handed sketching. You filled every page of that journal with the flowers I picked for you from the meadow. Every page except one. 

I found the list scrawled in your tall, thin words. A list of places, a list of things to do and people to meet and an ode to your love for me. Some were crossed off:

Teach Addy how to draw flowers.

Spend more time at the lake with Addy.

Oh, how you loved the lake. Your face lit up like Christmas every time the water reflected the sun into your eyes. We made paper boats there, and flower crowns. I remember the twinkle in your eye as you took our flower of the day, settled it on a boat you crafted, and sent it away on the lake with a smile. 

I remember watching your hands form those paper boats. Always precise, sliding your finger over each crease with practiced grace. In those moments, with the gleam of the sun in your eyes and the beautiful boats resting in your palm, I wanted nothing more than to sit on the shore of the lake with you and just be. I wanted each and every moment there to last for eternity. 

I could never figure out the art of paper boats. Too many motions to remember, too many folds to keep track of. When you left, I retreated to my room for days on end to attempt boat after boat. I didn’t perfect it until last week. 

I would give the world for you to be here with me one more time, to share my victory. 

The bottom section of your list is full of newer words, ones that didn't live long enough to be made reality. Most of these belong on a bucket-list, wishful thinking, things that only a stroke of chance could make happen.

But one of these stood out to me like a wilted flower in the meadow we used to walk in:

Show Addy where I grew up. Take her to London with me.

I wonder what you'd say if you knew where I am.

I'm sitting by a lake now, and I can see your reflection on the surface of the water. Flowers, so many I've never seen and I've never shown you, dot the countryside around me. I see you running through the rolling hills, sitting next to me and sketching every flower until the scratching of your pencil has put me to sleep.

I wonder if there's a flower out here that's been growing for exactly three months. I wonder if you know I'm here, thinking about you. I wonder if you, too, can feel the gaping hole you've left behind.

I guess I wrote this to tell you that I did it. I came to London, and I saw you again. In the city, holding my hand on the rooftop bus, laughing and walking around the tiny shops.

I felt you in the café with me today, the gentle pressure of your hand engulfing mine, and I cried. I cried for the memories we shared, for the experiences we lost.

I desperately wished that I'd saved more of your flowers.

In each one that you let go of, let float away on a paper boat, I see my face. You left me adrift, floating away from you, further every day. I have no control over the paper boat I'm stranded on, a boat that will soon become waterlogged and sink and sink until we are no more.

I don't want us to sink.

But I suppose we already have, haven't we?

It wasn't something either of us could help. The flowers you sent on the paper boats can't keep them from drowning, and neither could we.

You tried. I know you tried. But it was hopeless.

So now I'm a foreigner on a paper boat, the water swallowing my ankles. In these last minutes I have by this lake, I know our boat will sink. I know I will lose the last of you. I know that a piece of my heart will drown with this boat.

And yet here I am. I have to let go.

I love you, Dad.

Signed,

Your Addy

The girl inhaled, carefully, slowly, intentionally, letting the London air wash through her. One day, maybe, she could let this very air carry her away like a flower, to reunite with him, to run to his arms like she did so long ago.

Today, the void in her heart told her, was not that day.

She folded the letter with precise hands, ensuring that her signature remained visible. She set a flower, white, on the paper boat and kneeled at the shore.

"Go," she whispered, closing her eyes. Even now, she couldn't bear to watch her father float away.

The little flower sailed bravely into the unknown, into a place that she could not yet go, with the lake reflecting the sun's light onto the petals.

Addy kneeled where the water met the earth and watched the paper boat sink.

This story was inspired by the song “London” by Filmore, and a young girl I know who recently lost her dad. There have been many strong emotions surrounding this lately, and I felt I had to write about it. Thank you for reading.