Holding on

Holding on to something is really an inevitable part in our lives. We may or may not know it. Sometimes it makes no difference at all. When we recognize that we are holding on to something it either just makes us rationalize about it or we deny that we do. We hold on to our hopes and dreams, we hold on to family, to friends, to faith, to love, to the good in this world, to the courage in ourselves.

We hold on because the things that we hold on to give meaning to our lives. ANd when we see the end of that which we hold on to, it seems as if our world stops and we cease to live...for a time.

I think my dad is in that stage now. I think that there is no day since the death of my mom - his wife - when he wished that he too would be taken away from this earth. My mom was his life and now that she had gone, he too wants to follow. I don't exactly know their love story, but it was a pretty dramatic one from what I've heard. My dad has been holding on too much to my mom. She is the only person he listens to. She is the only one who can tame him. And now that she's gone. There's no one that can sustain him.

NOw my dad is holding on to each one of us. To the point of keeping us as close as possible to him. He probably feels that if he is close enough to see us, nothing close to what happened to my mom would happen to us.

Sometimes holding on to something can make a difference between moving on and staying put. Its a thin line that separates living life and simply existing. My dad has started to exist when my mom left us. How I wish my dad would live again. Not for us. But for himself. How I wish and pray that my dad would realize that it is not in holding on to us that we live longer, but in moving on and letting life go the way it should go, without holding back, without the fear of losing someone. How I wish that my dad would learn to live HIS life, discovering things that he had overlooked before and learning that my mom's time was up and she had to go.

I still cry buckets of tears when I remember my mom. ANd everytime I remember the first and only movie premier we watched together - her first and last - I can't help but cry and ask her why she had to go so early when I was just about to show her the world that she gave me. But its in holding on to her memories that I find the courage to live my life because I know that she would be happier to see me grow and be that person that she enabled me to be than to wallow in grief over her loss.

Ma, I love you ma, I may not have served you in your time and I may not have shown it when you were still here with us. But I do. I just wish that you could give papa the same courage you taught me when you were still with us so that he too would realize that this time, its in letting you go and holding on to your memories that we honor you more.