The Potholes Of Life

I was startled awake by the sound of doors closing and footsteps on the floor above me. I looked at the clock, it was very early in the morning.

I got a sickly feeling inside me. Something wasn't right. Then it hit me. Silence.

It was too quiet. The humming of my dad's ventilator was gone.

Now I understood what the commotion was about.

He was gone.

I could hardly believe it. Just a few months ago he was riding his green ten-speed bike on many-mile journeys across the city. He learned to ski a few years prior and we had so much fun flying down the runs at the local ski resorts.

He just seemed so healthy.

He had probably gone blind from his rapidly advancing cancer the week before, but it didn't really matter because his mind was completely entrenched in dealing with all the pain and suffering he was enduring. I was relieved that he wasn't going through that any more, for sure.

But I was selfish too, I wanted my dad back. As I drifted uneasily back to sleep in my tears, I thought of how different my life would be from that moment on.

Now there would be no more skiing with my father. No more "helping" him build things in his basement workshop. No more of his cheesy sight-gags involving thumbs being slammed in trunks. No more stories of World War II, the snowball fights of his childhood, or how he met my mother.

And a thousand other things, I am still discovering them to this day.

It's amazing how big a scar that left in my life. It's like a giant pothole in the road that never gets fixed. Eventually it fills with water, and then it looks like it's not there anymore. But inevitably one day you forget and drive into it, and there you are, stuck. And it all comes flowing back at once.

That's what happened to me today.