it is a picture of my father and i, taken when i was four years old and we were in kogri, ghana for the summer holidays.
i looked at this photo and my stomach sank to a depth beyond my ankles because the thought that shot through my head was not, i miss my dad, but: one day, my dad will die and i will look at this photo and really miss my father.
it's a quiet fear i've been living with since the almost successive deaths of my father's father and my mother's mother (the only people i have known to die). grandparents are often like buffers, and their presence ensures you that your parents are young. but in their 70s they quietly passed away to leave my parents as the next generation to go & the thought drives me crazy and i've tried to express it to no avail. i keep looking at my parents as they speak and i keep thinking that one day their eyes won't blink and their teeth won't move in their jaws like that. my mother's lips won't purse when she's angry, and my father's eyes won't come alive with annoyance, and they have left me so much to love them for and i cannot bear the thought of the inevitable happening...
and this paranoia has been fed and exacerbated by the fact that i am on the other side of this fucking globe now. my mother once called me with a cold that made her voice hoarse and i was sure she was about to tell me my father had died in a plane crash. a few weeks ago, my mum and little sister left for china late at night and we couldn't reach them by phone. i was certain that they'd been murdered on the train ride there and i began to prepare myself for a life as naana's sole big sister and surrogate mother ...
this really does sound crazy and i can admit that it is, but it does not minimize the way in which these thoughts terrorize my existence. seeing that photo caused the most recent resurfacing of the idea and it's haunting me to an extent i almost don't want to admit to.
and this comes at a time when i am quietly lamenting the wonder years of life at home with my backbone, a way in which i will never get to live again. and they say that this is why we get married and have children and create second families but nothing can compare to my sisters and parents. nothing. and nothing can ever compare in the same way. i am beyond protective of my sisters. when they started taking the bus by themselves i would sit at home and worry until they came back safely.
and yes, this is the one reason why i try not to think of anything beyond this life, but i still pray. it is pascal's wager on a micro-scale. i care not about heaven or hell or religion or god as painted by bibles and torahs and korans, or my own salvation. but if there is something out there that is keeping my family safe, i want it to keep doing that.
i continue to acknowledge how crazy this whole system is, but my life is dominated by these thoughts right now and i can't take it. i can't deal with my burgeoning social anxiety, my intermittent inability to function, my dirty dance that is a constant attempt not to fall back into a pit ... i can't do all that and entertain these thoughts.
and the answer is obviously not: to simply acknowledge how ridiculous this is (i already have), and the answer is not to just be rational and know that the chances are low (i know that) ... but 0.01% is still a chance that terrorizes my insides.
death lingers over my parents as they are now the oldest generation. and my parents are quite young and very vital. they are running marathons and doing their PhDs and being academics and raising children and at present they are rationally only halfway through their lives ... but all i can then think is that accidents happen and everyday my parents & sisters are on buses and in buildings and crossing streets, and you know how absent-minded naana can be, how temperamental and impulsive vilaa can be, and daddy refuses to stop running when his heart beats too fast, and mummy is always on those weird diets ...
and i've been thinking that all i have to do right now is move back to hong kong when i'm done with school so i can be with them all the time as if my presence is a protective force ... but it's not even that. it's two things: 1) that i want to see every moment of their waking lives while they are still alive and 2) that i want to know them as they are and not remember them as they were as if they are already dead and i have to preserve a memory built on interspersed moments, dotted across my lifespan.
you can't think like that.
but i do.
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my mother still tries to do this.
and i know this nostalgia will only last for a little while and i will be okay again. but i also know that all i am doing is burying daggers and they always resurface with sharper blades.
and i am trying to tell myself that these photos are not a substitute for my memories because of course each photo is drenched in my mother's tendency to orchestrate for the camera
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