Missing You

My beloved daughter,

I’ve written and re-written the first line of this letter more times than I care to admit. Never before have I been so driven to speak, yet so utterly incapable of finding a single word to say. If there exists a word or phrase – no doubt dreamt up by an intellect far sharper than my own – for such a frustrating and sorry state of mind, I’m unaware of it.

I know what you would say, if you were here. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Compensating for losing your words by writing about your loss of words. Remind me again how you earned your doctorate?” And then, you would laugh. Not in a derisive way, but gently and with good humor. Laughter from a place of love. I, too, would laugh, and by the simple act of being in your presence, my mind would set itself at ease, and my words would return to me.

It’s this laughter, perhaps more than anything else, that I miss the most. The levity and joy you brought so effortlessly to my existence. It was a gift you gave me every moment we were together, without ever realizing you were doing so. Your presence was a gift. Your life, a treasure.

I have not laughed these last 13 months, Erika. Not once. Not since you died.

It’s a curious thing, writing a letter to someone who will never read its words. It’s a nonsensical act, an exercise in desperate futility that perhaps belies any claim I might’ve once made to intellectual brilliance. It’s one thing for a man of average mind to commit word to page as a way of speaking, in a fashion, to his deceased child. It’s another for a man of respected scientific stature – an internationally renowned geneticist with an intimate knowledge of life’s natural functions, no less – to get hung up on such a strange notion.

And yet, here I am. Broken beyond any semblance of rational thought. Shattered and hollow. Reduced to penning words that will never be read, meant for eyes that will never see again.

For all my so-called “brilliance” and rationality, I can think of no other way to speak to you. No other way. So, as I finally find my words (even if briefly and with uneven results), I ask that you indulge a very tired, very heartbroken old man this single, irrational act.

I suppose I should begin simply. You’ll be glad to know your keepsake roses are alive and well, still thriving and growing every day. I have taken great pains to ensure their continued health, and now that I’ve moved back to Japan, I expect they’ll flourish even more. I know how deeply you cherished them, and strange as it might be to admit, they’re now the closest thing to you I have left in this world. I can feel not only the life that flows through their every stem and petal, but the love you poured into them. I promise to care for and love them, just as you did, and just as I will always love you, until the end of my days.

It has been something of a Godsend to be back in Japan. A small slice of peace in a life that’s become achingly numb in your absence. How I wish you could see the trees and flowers that surround Lake Ashi, witness the green mountains and the beauty of creation so abundant in our homeland. It feels a world away from the dull grayness and unending sands of the Saradian desert, where we’d have been lucky to see much in the way of greenery. Do you remember how we used to walk the dunes together? You were so sure we’d find a flower, just one flower, beating the odds and thriving in the sun-bleached dust. We would search for hours, I – ever the scientist – knowing full well that no flower could live in such a place, and you – determined and fully convinced – always pressing onward, always believing. And because you believed, I believed, too.

Perhaps that’s why I’m writing to you now… because, in an existence that’s now every bit as desolate and hopeless as that faraway desert, you – my sweet daughter – are my flower in the dust.

I talk to you every day. Every day. When the morning sun peaks over the distant hills, I save a space for you by my side at the window. Eating breakfast on my own is miserable; you always cooked the most delicious omelets, and try as I might, I cannot re-create whatever magic you wielded while crafting them. Missing you, it seems, is a full-sensory experience; not even the taste of the meals we cooked together is safe from my grief.

There are songs I can never again listen to. Books we shared together which I cannot bring myself to revisit. To even stand in the places you stood brought a pain that cannot be described. She was once happy here. We once laughed over the silliest of jokes in this spot. We would spend our time away from the lab walking this street, visiting this market, this park, this cafe. These things, more than anything else, were the deciding factors in me leaving Saradia. To continue living in the country where you’d been taken from me, to remain employed by the government that allowed such a horrific bombing to occur… all this was hurtful enough. But in the end, it was the little things – the places, the memories, the association every inch of my home, every aspect of my life abroad had with you – that compelled me to leave.

I now live far away from the country where I held your broken body. Far from the Osaka home where you spent your childhood, went to school, scraped your knees, picked your first flower. Yes, I’ve brought myself far away from almost everything and everyone. My new lab is remote, quiet, peaceful. Free of the geographical reminders of your brief time on this Earth. But if the last 13 months have taught me anything, it’s that running away from my pain is not possible. No matter where I go, my pain joins me for the journey. I might be alone and suitably distant from the homes and workplaces we shared, but the window overlooking the distant hills – my “sunrise window” – is still wide enough for two. And no matter how much time passes, I always look for you there.

I look for you everywhere, sweetheart. And sometimes, when fate takes pity on me, I find you. I see your smile fading in and out of the leaves of distant, swaying trees. I hear your laugh carried on the wind. On some mornings, as I watch the sun come up, I swear – God help me, I swear – I feel your hand taking mine, gently holding it between your fingers, as if to say, “don’t be sad, daddy. I’m here with you, and the sunshine is beautiful this morning.”

Of course, your hand is never there when I turn to look down at my empty palms. You’re never there. You never will be.

I know you wouldn’t want me to torture myself. You would want me to live on, to stop seeking your smile and your voice in places where they so obviously cannot exist. But to do so is simply not within my power. To live on is to move on. To be happy is to move forward. And when you – my happiness, my purpose – lie forever behind me, what reason or motivation do I have to look anywhere other than backwards?

No, I cannot separate myself from my grief. Perhaps I do deserve to be happy again, but to do so – to even attempt it – would cripple me with a profound guilt that, I fear, might destroy what little remains of my heart. One does not “move on” from the death of the most important person in their life. Grief is not a bruise that can simply be recovered from with time and care. It is a wound, deep and debilitating and permanent. We might heal to some degree from the shattering of a leg bone or the shredding of its surrounding muscles, but there will always be a limp. How we, the living, choose to walk with that limp is, in many respects, up to us. Will we endeavor to disguise our scar, or let it fade into a normalcy so complete that we no longer notice the irregularity of our walk? Or, do we carry the pain of our scar forever, unable or unwilling to traverse this lonely world without feeling that extra weight and pain with every step?

I believe that I am destined for the latter.

And yet, as I wrote above, I know that’s not what you’d want. This, my sweet Erika, is my hell – forever lost in the liminal nightmare of living with a pain I know you’d want me free of, yet impossible to move on from, lest guilt drag me further into the darkness. It’s an impossible place to be, an equation that cannot be solved. There is no answer, no solution. No way back to joy for me, and no way back to life for you.

And so, what recourse do I have but to simply… exist? To breathe and eat and work, but not to live. I have not lived these last 13 months. I truly wonder if I shall ever live again.

Without you, the world has become far less kind and wonderful. A coldness has fallen upon the very act of living. Storms rage silently behind my eyes, unable to be calmed. I can no longer sleep through the night, and on the rare occasions when rest lingers enough for me to dream, I’m greeted by the sight of your lifeless form, laying upon a floor scorched with ash and littered with the corpses of blackened roses.

I hope you can forgive me for not moving on. As you can no doubt tell by my words, I am in shambles. An embarrassing husk of a man, the shadow of a scientist, robbed of being the one thing that truly mattered to him: a father. For as much as I ache to see you, I fear you would be mortified if you could see me now. You might even be ashamed.

Or, perhaps, you would take glee in seeing me reduced to such a state. For this last year, there has grown a malignant thought in my mind: that in your final moments of life, you might’ve despised me. It was I, after all, who brought you to Saradia. Were it not for me, you would never have been anywhere near that bomb. Perhaps this same thought occurred to you, too. Perhaps your final act was to blame me for your death. To believe that your lifelong trust in your father – the person you trusted the most in this world – had been displaced. Perhaps you felt you died unloved.

It has been unanswerable questions and unknowns like these – however irrational they might be – that have kept me awake for night upon horrid night. It seems that, in lieu of the logic that once governed my thoughts, I have begun inventing further reasons to torment myself in your absence.

It’s all nonsense. I know it is, and I hope you can understand that, despite moments of weakness, I do not truly believe these worries to be factual. Every human being who has loved someone has, even if only briefly and entirely irrationally, feared in the very deepest corner of their soul that their love is one-sided. That those who love them back will, one day, feel differently, or that they never returned that love to begin with. It’s a fear that never entered my life until I became a father, when every aspect and perspective in my existence shifted into an unbreakable devotion to your life, your safety, and your happiness. When one’s life becomes so profoundly focused on one person, they hope and pray that this person never has reason to question that devotion. Especially when that person is their child.

There is no decent parent in this world who does not question, day in and day out, if they are a good parent, or if they even deserve to be one. I’ve certainly asked such questions of myself, even (or perhaps, especially) in your absence. Was I good enough? Was I devoted enough? Did she grow up knowing how deeply special she is? How loved she was from the moment she was placed in my arms?

I hope you knew, Erika. I hope you knew that you were my world and my light. My pride, my most joyous of joys, the reason my heart beat and my lungs breathed. I hope you knew that your smile could calm my storms, that having you as my daughter brought me a peace I never knew was possible, and that you never needed to be anything other than yourself – your wonderful, brilliant, funny, kind, amazing self – to be loved by every soul your goodness touched.

I hope you knew.

I have so very much I still want to say to you. Perhaps there will be more letters in the future. More love and pain committed to words you cannot see. Or, conversely, this exercise will have served its practical purpose of helping me to, in some small way, process a fraction of my grief, if such a thing is even possible. My own doubts on that front aside, it is my hope that any peace I receive from crafting this letter will outweigh the pain of knowing you will never read a word of it. If there is any semblance of peace to be found in what remains of my life, perhaps I’ll find it here, through the auspices of the written word. We will have to wait and see.

It’s funny… a few short hours ago, I struggled to begin this letter. Now, I dread finishing it. As if placing my pen upon my desk will condemn you to a second death. Through this pen, I have found a way to, in a sense, reach beyond death and pull you close to me once more. To have one last conversation, and to tell you how deeply I miss you. If pen and paper can achieve such a resurrection, surely there must exist other ways. Other chances, other methods of connection. A way back. A way to find you.

My mind knows that our separation is final and forever, but my heart – my stubborn, shattered heart – will always believe that a flower can grow in a desert. And so, my heart will search the endless sands for you forever. It will seek your light beyond the storm, reach for you through the ache and the dark. I will hope and I will believe, until my dying breath, that we will see each other again.

Until then, my sunshine, wherever you might be, please know beyond all else that you are – and shall always be – loved.

Yours with all my heart,

– Dad

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