The Day After The Tragedy

Yesterday was the most horrifying day of my life. I lost my father, my own father! I can’t believe it happened to me. I always thought about the time he will die but I never thought it would be like that. My dad did not die of old age, he put a bullet in his head! He committed suicide! I feel so lost and alone without him.

Father was a very special man. He was a self-made man who built his own business with his own hands. True, he was not an educated man, he did not even graduate high school. In fact, I do not think he has read a book in his whole life. However, he was a smart man. The kind of “smart” you can never learn in schools. His life experience taught him to be practical. Father mastered the rules of surviving in this “zoo land”. He himself grew up as an orphan, that is why the family was his whole life. He was a warm loving father who provided for our family. Both me and my brother Larry had a very happy childhood. Oh, those good old days, I have so many good memories…

He should not have died like that. The thought he committed suicide because of me and my brother makes me sick. I despise myself. I cry for my brother every day, I miss him so much – such a tragedy. I do not know how I can go on living with the knowledge that my dear brother committed suicide because of what my father had done, and that my father, once he discovered it, did the same thing. I know that what father did was wrong. I know that he should have paid for it. When I found out that he was responsible for the death of the 21 pilots I saw the faces of the soldiers I had lost in that cursed war. I hated him so much. I couldn’t bare looking at him. I tried to make him see things my way- the right way. I wanted him to admit he was guilty! He refused!.”There is nothing bigger than the family”. “A father is a father!” He kept repeating these sentences. When he understood that Larry killed himself because of what he had done, he understood the gravity of his deed. I felt satisfied. He finally came to realize that there is something greater than the family.

That moment, I should have been there for him, but I was too busy being right. I forgot how much I owed him, I forgot my responsibility as a son to his father. At that time, I thought society is more important than my father I was an idealist. Today, I’m not so sure I was right.

Please forgive me father, I will always love you, and you will always be a part of me.