My Life is in Sunlight

Sun. For some the Sun brings a great deal of happiness and positivity. In Celtic mythology the Sun represents leadership, healing, and strength. For a little child it can be as simple as certainty of a very fun day ahead of them, spent on playground. But for me? The Sun brings only pain and suffering.

I spend my days behind dark curtains, tinted glass windows silently judging. Judging the people outside, passing by my house that I cannot ever leave. I have always wanted to be like them. Mysterious, looking like they have somewhere to be, rushing to meet their friends and loved ones. You may say I am just jealous. Yes, that is exactly what I am.

I was born and later diagnosed with a rare type of allergy. Solar Urticaria are the two words that haunt me every single day of my existence. I have, as the average person would say, an allergy to sun. Few minutes of exposure to sun rays causes my skin to develop rash and blisters. Well, that is what the medical experts say. The diagnosis was so sudden and shocking. One day I was living a normal life and the next I was completely stripped of everything and everyone I loved. Since that day I have not stepped outside.

I can remember how warm the sunbeams felt in the summer when my family decided to take a beach trip when I was about 6. Back then it was still all of us. My mother and father, with my other 2 siblings fighting in the car backseat with me next to them. I was looking out of the window on the smudges of people walking on a sidewalk. I guess you can say I have always liked observing strangers and imagining their lives and scenarios they might find themselves in. And then it happened. I do not remember much of the actual incident, just the sound of brakes on concrete road, tone of pure panic in my fathers’ voice and a big crash.

Later I found out my siblings and mother did not survive the car crash. At the day of the funeral, I remember wishing I died instead of them as I watched them lowering the three coffins into the cemetery ground. That day, my hope and happiness were buried along with my loved ones.

After that day everything changed. I cannot say if we had a good nor bad relationship with my father, but it surely got better after everything that has happened. I could see him trying to hold it together for me every single day he got up. He would play with me, sing to me, and put me to sleep with a bedtime story when bad dreams of the accident woke me up at night. I was truly grateful I had him, but I knew. I knew he was suffering, silently, at night when nobody could see him.

One day I woke up crying in the middle of the night. I called out to my father, but he did not answer as he usually did. The only light in my room shone from my half open door leading to our living room. I got up and opened the door. Our living room was illuminated by only the television that was left on by my dad. Nothing really changed in our house since the accident, the only new element were the dozens and dozens empty bottles of alcohol my father drank up. And there he was, asleep on the green sofa that always reminded me of my mothers’ eyes I remembered every time I looked at it. In one hand he was holding a photograph of my family, empty bottle of vodka in the other. The redness of his eyes gave away that he was crying a lot. I remember thinking: I wish I could help you; I wish things would get better for you.

And then they did. Unfortunately, my health has not. It seemed like he limited his alcohol use when my diagnosis for sun allergy came in. He did everything in his power to make situation better because I was the one that needed help now. My mental health got rapidly worse; I would often sit alone only with my thoughts because my father worked 2 jobs to pay for my medical bill that mostly consisted of my therapy charges. He paid a lot for things to keep me busy, but it seemed the only thing that would was jealously watching people from the window and slowly destroying myself bit by bit.

Things got even worse as my father was diagnosed with stomach cancer. This did not help his alcoholism at all. Normally cancer would be the sign to most people to stop drinking but unfortunately it was not to my father. It almost seemed like he has given up on life, drinking every day, loosing both of his jobs. He even stopped hiding it from me. But I was too swallowed up by my own problems to help his and one day it ended. He was admitted to a hospital and few days later passed, alone, because I could not leave my house. I closed myself off to in my den and would not leave for half a year. Relatives tried to contact me numerous times, but I refused to speak to anybody. Occasionally I would hear the front door open as my aunt was bringing me food and putting it on the counter. I imagined it was my family, returning home like usual. It seemed like the universe and fate were laughing in my face.

 I do not know what drawn me to check my fathers’ room one day. I sat at his, now very dusty and dirty, desk looking through his documents. I think I wished to find something that would help me cope, a note or something meaningful. And to my surprise I found a letter addressed to me from him. I opened the wrinkled piece of paper and a cabinet key fell out. His handwriting was not as neat as it used to be.

“To my dearest,

I wish I you understood… I wish I could tell you how sorry I am for this, for everything… I want you to know that I love you so much… I was afraid I would lose you too if I did not do it …

Love, Dad”

I did not understand. What was he trying to say? With shaking hands, I grabbed the cabinet key and opened a drawer in his desk. I only found many of my medical cards. Surely, they must have been important to him, so I started going through them one by one.

I cannot believe my eyes. It feels like my brain is failing. I did not know what my father meant by his letter but now as I am holding the records of my health documenting my whole life; I understand. In any of them, not even one has a sign of Solar Urticaria. “This can’t be true, this can’t be true…” I am repeating while I lay curled up on the floor. Does this mean I was never sick all this time? Does that mean I could have a normal life if it wasn’t for the selfishness of my father? My brain is going through all the emotions: anger, sadness, happiness, … and doesn’t seem to settle on one. “I can finally live” I say as I rise and make my way to the door. I stop with my one hand on the doorknob. My chest is rising so fast it feels like I am having a heart attack. I open the door and the brightness of outside blinds me. I step out, I run, I jump, I am ready for this new life and then…. I hear a familiar sound… a car honk and the sound of brakes.

So, there I was… in the warmth of sunlight… and there I passed… the happiest I’ve ever been…