Lost Baggage

It was the voices that woke her. 

They were loud, and yet, she couldn’t understand a word. 

It took her some time to realize that the voices were coming from the middle of the room, more specifically, from the bed in the middle of the room; the bed where he laid.

Looks like he was fighting with people that weren’t there again.

She got up from the couch she was sleeping on and took tentative steps towards the bed. 

It’s been almost a week now since his accident, the one that landed him in the hospital pending surgery, and for some reason, his delusions were getting worse and worse as they days went by. 

She has tried to call a nurse to help calm him down to no avail. So, she finally realized she was all alone in a hospital room with the one man who has broken her heart more than anyone else.

Her first love… her first heart break… her Father.

She can’t say he took her completely by surprise. There were certain situations where his personality and way of thought started to emerge. Bit by bit at first, and yet, none of this made her doubt him or rethink her relationship with him. He remained her father, the one she loved and trusted the most; all until that Day.

She remembers that day clearly, years and years ago, when her father fell from that high pedestal she has always put him on. When she has finally realized how her father saw her.

He who was supposed to always be there, to always have her back, to always support her no matter what… abandoned her when it mattered the most. 

Losing her mother at a young age, her father has become everything to her; her hero and role model, the person she hoped to be like one day. To her, he could do absolutely no wrong. Until the day he did.

Her father’s family hasn’t always been nice to her; always viewing her like an anomaly and refusing to accept how different she is from them, so, when that fight happened, and it came down to either her or them, her father chose them. 

Grief was how she felt, and despair. Abandoned even. 

She was 16, and all of a sudden she didn’t just have herself to take care of, but her little brother as well. 

Other members of the family supported them, but the change inside her has already taken place. 

She was scared, not understanding how something like this could have happened. How could her own father turn his back on her like that? He became a man she has never known before. He got angry, yelled, and used words she’s never heard from him. All of a sudden, he was a stranger to her. 

And this was when it finally hit her… she was alone! 

And eventually, she learned to love it.

She dropped her childish beliefs of family like a heavy baggage and started to create her own. 

She became very picky in choosing her friends, not that she was good at making new ones in the first place. The friends who stuck with her through thick and thin became her family. Every person had a known role in her life, and yet, she still didn’t trust anyone completely, anyone that isn’t she that is.

She grew into her own person; powerful and independent. She became the one others leaned on for support, instead of being the one who needs support. 

She loved her independence, strived for her alone time. But her friends wouldn’t always let her have it. They finally managed to break many of the walls her father’s betrayal has erected around her. She started to trust again, at least more than before. She started knowing her own value, maybe not all the time, but there were moments where she knew how much she shined. And these were the moments she cherished the most and shared with the people in her life; friends and family, the ones that have actually stood by her against all that life threw her way ever since her mother’s passing, including her father. 

Her laughter returned. She became loud and outspoken, unafraid to share her thoughts and ideas. 

She used the dark place she has escaped to inside her mind after what happened as the source to all the beautiful things she created in her life later on. Apparently, the most beautiful of arts came from pain, from grief and betrayal.

And then the day came when it was her father who needed her help, her support… and she was there. 

She remembered that day just as clearly as the day he betrayed her. 

Her phone rang and she saw her cousin’s name on the screen. Her father has fallen in the middle of the street and has been taken to the hospital. 

Going there, she learnt that there were broken bones, and that a surgery had to be performed, after which, it would be months till he learnt to move or walk again on his own.

She walked in to the hospital room, and there he was, just lying, unmoving, and with a weird smile on his face. For a second, he looked genuinely happy to see her. She’s not sure how she felt at that moment though.

Her father no longer remembers what he’s done, most of the time he’s only there physically, and someplace else mentally.

Dementia can be a bitch. 

It took a lot of strength on her part, but she was there for him through his sickness and bouts of delirium. Through his surgery and the months that followed.

And this was how she ended up at 30, standing over her delirious father’s bed, trying to get him to calm down and get some sleep. 

The way she saw it, she has come a full circle. She has become a better person than she could have possibly hoped. She no longer wished to be like her father, she knew she could be better.