You're Not Here Anymore and That’s Okay

The day you got sick was the day that everything in my past came back to my head in my thoughts. When we were younger we had it very hard, you were a strict old school Mexican dad. Your beliefs were the way you were raised as a young boy. So we had it very hard, we weren’t aloud to do a lot of things that other family members and friends that I knew could do, it was what you said and that’s it. We had it rough growing up, you and my mom always fighting. Physical and mental abuse was in the picture for a very long time, and me and my siblings grew up thinking it was normal and okay. Now it came to that day the day my mom would leave you this last time and never go back with you after 15 years of this hell back and fourth, she finally had the courage to say enough is enough. You both separated and found other lovers, the guy that she is with is a low life. Now I’m wishing you both were together because it’s starting to suck and I hate this guy.

Then the day of my 16 birthday came. We had been talking, and you promised me you were going to get me a car, so I call you that day and I excited and ready waiting for you but you don’t call or show. I call you and my aunt tells me don’t ever call because of you and your mom your dad is in jail. You left. I didn’t know what was going on and I was so angry because I was getting blamed for something my mom did, not me. Years go by, we keep in touch, you call us here and there to see how we’re doing.

And then I join the military my first time being away from home and I’m homesick. But the same state I’m in, you are in too, but in prison. So my sister sends me your address and I start writing to you. We start to build a new connection and this new connection is build on trust and honesty, I’m not little no more, and you know that so the truth starts unveiling itself to me about why we lived the way we did, and why there was so much pain in hurt in our past and you let me know your faults and my moms. I believe you because things that I saw when I was young, that I essentially was wrong we’re and she was a big reason we went through what we went through. All this time I told him I hated him. Why did he put us through this? But it was her fault all along.

I grew a connection with you, a healthy bond and me and her stopped talking and haven’t talked since I went back home from training. Now let me flash forward to now, you have a great relationship with my husband and kids and they know you they never met her and I’m okay with that. I’ve grown to except that life takes you through these obstacles, and you just have to know how to remove yourself from any bad negative situation. So the year 2018 on July 17 you called me and told me you can’t do it you're sick of being sick and tired of feeling like this. So I go the next day and you're sick, and you can’t look me in my face, you don’t want to fail me but you can’t take it no more. It’s hard 'cause you don’t want to go, but the pain is too much to take. You had been suffering like this for a year already, and your system is shutting down little by little. I stood those next nights thinking that this was a bad dream, that you will overcome this and get better but you didn’t.

The memory of you, the way you look you were like in another world seeing through me, and not hearing my voice anymore as I talked to you. You fought strong and I tried to stay strong for as long as I could the last day I went to see you I told you goodbye. I couldn’t see you get worse or pass I didn’t want to have that vision in my head. The next day August 4, 2018 is the day you left me, the day you left us. I lost the only parent I had in my life and I did not know what to do. I knew it was going to happen, but when it did I just let go, stopped being strong and broke. I broke down so bad that I couldn’t believe that this was real, that it happened. You were once a person I hated for putting us through everything you did, but you weren’t a bad person. You loved me the best way you could, and knew and I thank you for that. You will always be my superhero while you are watching down on me from up above. 🙏