My Dad died from what started out as a flu.

I could not understand how in the span of 19 days, someone who I has just talked to, who had laughed at my crazy jokes, someone who had a big smile whenever opening the door for me would somehow cease to exist.

I learned that as much as I looked for answers for what had happened, some events in life a unpredictable and don’t have clear answers. Coming back to living my normal life as if nothing has happened is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life. Among my group of friends, I began to feel like an outsider, someone who was incomplete.

But I had to accept that this is my new reality.

No matter how much I yearn for, no matter how I kept repeating having dream about him, I would not be able to call my Dad about my bad days, about my good news, or finally I had taken on his words to go follow my dream, learn things that I deeply care for. I would never be able to show him me in my chef uniform, like I used to show him my graduation gown.

My Dad died, 3 year ago today.

One year after he passed away, I have becoming fiercely independent, much more independent than I used to be when he was still around. To the point that it was a source of pride of me, not to ask for help. I have become numb and resilient to any sort of external factor. I became a living creature without soul, I went from a girl who used to marvel at nature to soul-less smile. It was then at my lowest point emotionally, that I learned to let people in. People have come to me from all sorts of unexpected and touching ways, they comfort me, sometimes sharing they stories. The therapist who listen to me, Huy who chatting with me through many sleepless night and still do, Tim who sat with me for hours at the bar, Landon who sheltered me in his home, Khuong who drank with me and drove me home after I threw up all over his car. These people makes me laugh for what was such a dark time for me.

My Dad has gone forever.

Not a single day passing by that I don’t think about him. That’s why today is not really a special day for me. I think about him as much as a week ago. The only different is today at around this time 3 years ago, I was on the ambulance bringing him home for the last time. That’s the reason I am now afraid of the ambulance, the emergency room overnight.

The truth is life is really unpredictable, which any human beings will find in varying degrees.

My Dad died through the witness of my own eyes. It’s the sort of pain that I will never can recover come. I’m not ashamed to say that I fear for the future, I really don’t know how it will turn out.

Today, I miss my Dad a little less than everyday.