33- The First Fall
How many times can you fall,
How many times can you reach rock bottom,
before the ground starts to feel familiar?
Would there be another one?
Would I be able to endure another one?
That fear,
the one known only to those who’ve seen the shadows
never really leaves.
Stays with you like a shadow
following you every decision you make in life
I’ve learned how easy it is to slip.
To fall so deep you forget what light looks like.
So I walk cautiously.
Too cautiously.
Missing chances,
regretting later.
Anchored to the ground by fear,
barely able to move.
Sometimes staying still feels safer than trying to climb out.
I’ve hit rock bottom three times in my life so far.
Each one came without warning.
No sirens.
No signs.
Just a sudden yank back into the dark.
As if fate whispered,
“You’ve wandered too far, come back to where you belong.”
As if reminding me that I’m just a moth drawn to the light,
not out of hope,
but out of instinct.
That if I get too close, I’ll burn.
That joy,
like flame,
was never meant for me to hold. Only to chase.
Only to feel for a moment before the singe.
The first fall, I was when I was eleven.
Too young to know how cruel life could be.
We lived on a big farm.
doing better than most.
Some even called us rich.
Never worried to have food on the table
Never worried to have shelter from all the elements
My father, a hard worker,
like every immigrant chasing a dream.
Working day and night 7 days a week.
Never resting,
Chasing every penny.
One day he had a minor surgery.
Nothing serious.
of course he didn't rest.
Oh why didn't he rest....
He went straight back to work.
His body wasn’t ready.
He got sick.
An infection, we beloved.
I wish I knew what it was.
But I was too young to understand.
And my mother,
who’d spent her life on the farm, didn’t speak the language well.
To this day we don't really know what it was.
He had to be hospitalized in the major hospital in the city
Too far from our farm,
My mother made a hard choice,
To stayed by his side at the hospital.
While we—four children— were left to fend for ourselves.
Two of us barely knew how to work.
Two could barely speak.
But we had to do it.
We cooked.
We looked after ourselves and the farm.
We went to school.
We survived.
It was supposed to be weeks,
But lasted for over two months.
Then one day,
my mother came home.
Exhausted,
Withdrawn,
She asked my older brother to stay for a talk.
Told the rest of us to sleep,
even though it was still early.
I woke in the middle of the night.
I couldn't sleep,
went to get a glass of water.
Opened the door to the living room.
And there it was.
A huge black box in the middle of the living room
Something no child should ever see.
Something no one ever wish to see.
It was my father’s coffin.
He was gone.
I understood what it was,
but my mind refused to process it.
My mind told myself it was a nightmare.
Turned around.
Went back to sleep.
Without a word,
Without making a noise
I just turned around and went back to sleep
I’ll never forget that moment.
I had never felt so numb.
So empty.
No tears came.
Not at the funeral.
Not when he was buried.
Not for a month after he passed.
Just like a ghost in my own skin.
For a while I had a blank stare.
Void of any emotions
I didn’t know what had done that to me.
I barely remember what I was feeling back then
Looking back know,
I think I wanted to believe that it was just a bad dream.
And if I cried,
it would become real.
And I’d never wake up from this nightmare again
So I didn’t cry.
I went to school.
Came home.
Ate.
Slept.
And repeated that for months
With no emotion.
Waiting to wake up.
But I never did.
Then came the true fall.
Not the coffin.
Not the realisation that he is gone
But the bill.
The true harsh reality in a form of a piece of paper
A medical bill from the hospital that couldn’t save him.
Two months of blood transfusions.
Hospitalization.
We were immigrants.
That bill took everything.
We lost everything
We lost the farm.
We lost the house
We lost everything that my father slaved to give us
His legacy,
All gone
We begged for help from all my father's friends
All those people my father called friends
The ones who cried at the funeral
They soon became strangers.
They pitied us.
But when we asked for help,
one excuse after another,
Nobody helped
No money.
No “friends.”
That’s when I learned what this world really is.
At the age of eleven.
A harsh reality that broke my soul.
That chained my ankles
and dragged me to rock bottom.
Trust no one.
Rely on no one
Friends comes with a price tag
If you can't pay it,
You can't have it.
That's what i took from that experience on that day
My opinion might have changed slightly now,
But at eleven,
That's how felt
At a quiet corner at the bottom of this world.
All that I had left was
Towards everything and everybody surrounding me,
Until the next two falls,
Which dragged me even further down,
Further in the dark
than I thought I could ever go.
That's a story for another time.
I'll write when I'm emotionally ready to share
I'm tired now.
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