A Letter to Forever

A Letter to Forever
By Rikka K

There I sat, cross-legged, on my bed. Well, you couldn't really call it a bed. It was more of a mat. But, details aside, I was sitting there, thoughts running through my mind. In front of me, lying on the bed was an envelope containing a letter. It was a letter from my father.

He knew. He knew his life was coming to an end. Days, even weeks before. Even though no one knew. Not even the people who claimed to be doctors, professionals, were able to help my father. Anger seeped through my very veins as I think of their negligence.

My Father was cheerful, no one knew his time was near, as he had always loved to joke around. He would send me handwritten letters, and would refuse to tell me the content even though I badgered him constantly. He would smile that mysterious little smile of his as I opened his letter. Much to my joy, it would be filled with things a 7-year old would love to read. Riddles, puzzles, and my father's very own stories. See, my father was a well-known author of children's books. Even as I grew up and become an adolescent, I was always amused and fascinated by his stories of talking spiders and dancing pets. They were too childish and fictional, but I was always eager to listen.

I still remember once when I was eight. I was lying down on the grass in our yard with my father beside me, looking up at the clear blue sky. It had been one of our favorite pastimes when I was a little girl. I had always been so close to my father. There was this special connection between us that I couldn't really name.

"Daddy, will the sun fall from the sky one day?" I asked in my small voice.

"No, the sun will always be there, just like how I'll always be with you," my father explained to me. I loved it when my father talked in such a carefree and optimistic way.

I turned to look my father in the eye. "You promise? You'll always, always be here with me?" I asked.

My father smiled. "Yes, I promise."

"Forever?" I asked again, just to make sure.

My father was still smiling. "Forever."

Then one day, when we were least expecting it, he went. Just like that. Nobody had any idea. The hospital called when we were preparing for our daily visits, and it came as a shock to all of us. I laughed when my brother told me, thinking he was only trying to scare me, and scolded him at the same time for joking about things like that. Then he told me it was true. The news just came, he said. I couldn't remember what happened next. I only began to heal five weeks later. Until now, two months from that day, I still think of him every hour, every minute, every second, as though he was still among us. But I would wake up from these dreams and realize that he was gone. Nothing could bring him back. His voice, his warm, quirky laugh still rings in my ear and in my heart. But nothing could ever bring him back.

So I sat there and stared at the worn-out piece of paper my mother had given to me just now. She said that she was waiting for the right time, that my father had instructed her to give it to me when I began to learn. Learn what? I didn't know. Mom didn't know either, but she felt in her heart that it was time. I stared at the envelope as though it would open by itself magically if I stared long and hard enough.

"Well, it's now or never."

Hands shaking, I reached for it. Falling out from the envelope was one solitary piece of my dad's favorite stationery, a small, tiny piece of stationery. Tears threatened to fall as I clutched the piece of paper to my heart. "Thanks, Dad."

More than ever, I felt closer to him, felt his very presence right beside me. Dad was here. I was safe.

I glanced at the small note, which had my father's beautiful, curly handwriting on it, as I cried, knowing silently, that his one word could never be truer.

"FOREVER."