“When times get tough, fake a smile and move on.” I’ve heard this pretty often; so much that it naturally became a quote I live by.

Admittedly, I’ve always expected someone to offer me a listening ear, or a helping hand. Then again, the point of realization taught me that expectations only lead to disappointments.

I was brought up with this growing sense of insecurity. I believe it came about after my father passed away. For many years, I continued to live in his shadow because a father’s disappearance from the face of this Earth would be too much for any seven-year-old to handle.

My memories vaguely remember him but I know for sure he was an honorable leader of this family. He fought kidney failure for many years and endured session after session of dialysis. I wouldn’t be able to imagine the amount of pain he had to go through but he never showed it, not even once. If there is one word I could use to describe him, it’d be ‘respect’.

We shared a love-hate relationship most of the time because he was never a man who’d give in to my extreme liking towards soft toys. If I started my “crying drama”, he would just walk off and leave me wailing in the middle of the corridor, only to have me realize that I’ll never have things my way.

But there were many reasons to love this man and to sum it all up; it was simply because he is my father. Even though his physical being no longer exists, a part of me will always hold him dear. True enough, he only took up a small fraction of my memories but I’ll never forget him for who he was to me and how much I have relied on him in times of difficulty.

April 9, 2000, I witnessed my father collapse due to an impromptu heart-attack during his afternoon nap. He was rudely awakened and suddenly struck with suffocation. The panic came first before it finally sank in. Chaos was brewing in the house. Someone called for an ambulance while my mother and maid held my father in place, clearly battling the fear in their hearts. I will never forget how my sister and I fell to our knees and started praying till we were out of breath despite the tears gushing down our cheeks. The paramedics came, they took carried him out on a stretcher and he never came back.

The next I saw him was when they returned his body to us for us to hold a proper funeral.

For many years after that, I lived with the same nightmare, the same scene played in my head endlessly. It haunted me while I was awake and accompanied me in bed. It never left me and when it did, I was half-tormented, half-scarred by all of it.

Honestly, I never got used to it. Sometimes, I found my escape through the razors left in the cupboards. It took away the emotional distress temporarily but even though only for an instant, I could say I was slightly happier.

My father was not a man of many words but he was firm with us. If we had to be chided, he would. If we had to be caned, he would. If there was anything important to him, it would be bringing his children up the right way so that we would never be despised or looked down upon in future.

I could vaguely recall the mornings he’d send me down to take the school bus, or the afternoons he was home to dry my hair for me. There were occasional trips to the dialysis center to accompany him for the three hours he would normally spend alone. I have seen the injections, the medications, the swelling after each dialysis session but what I’ll remember most is his smile.

He was a cheerful man regardless the situation. Part of me figured he might have lost hope along the way but that never affected his attitude or outlook in life. He never lost his shine and most importantly, he never stopped giving. Right till the end, he loved us with all he had and he helped others with everything he could. It was probably his way of giving back to the society that took him in and also his way of telling his family to never forget his love even though he may no longer be around.

I’ve always remembered him that way but the torture only ceased some ten years later.
I spent ten years crying myself to sleep every night, partly still stuck in the past when my father existed. I spent ten years cutting myself just to get away from everything and everyone that made me feel terrible. But it was only ten years later did I come across someone who pulled me out from despair.

“When things get tough, fake a smile and move on. You know why? Rainy days can’t last forever. Besides, there’s always sunshine after the rain! You can’t be sad always. Because if you’re sad, I’ll be sad too.”

That’s all it took for my skies to clear, for the rain to stop. All this while, my vision had been clouded by fear and insecurity. There was also uncertainty that if I let go of my past, I’d have lost my identity. But all the time I spent being sad and alone could have been better spent on exploring life itself. I should have known better but everything is always easier said than done.

I wasted ten years battling a meaningless fight. Pushed everyone away, left myself bruised from all the cuts, however, it was a lesson well-learnt.

Life does not stop just because you’ve lost someone special. Sometimes, some people just have to grow up faster than others; some people have to take lead of their lives ahead of others. Sure enough, I didn’t get to enjoy the luxury of MacDonald’s breakfast every Sunday or family trips overseas (thing is, even if any of those happened, I wouldn’t remember them) but the man who carried me first upon my birth, the man who is responsible for giving me life, I have no right of terminating it.

This life, it does not belong to me alone. Even if I can’t live for myself, at least, I’ve to live for others.