My Father and Me

A Farewell in the Cycle of Life

One of the most beautiful memories of my childhood is my father pushing me on the swing at the park. Each time, I wanted to go higher. “Higher, Dad!” I would shout. He would smile and give the swing a stronger push, and I imagined I could touch the leaves. When he came home from work, I would run into his arms and ask, “Did you bring chocolate, Dad?” At night, we would lie down together in the same bed, and he would tell me stories. The place where I felt safest, most at peace, and most loved was right by my father’s side.

In my teenage years, things changed. He would scold me for wearing makeup and wanted me to braid my hair. He never allowed me to stay over at a friend’s house. He was strict, authoritarian. I always carried a quiet resentment inside me. Sometimes I wrote him letters filled with lines of sadness and loneliness. When he read them, he would quietly come to me, hug me, and say, “I love you so much, my daughter. I just want to protect you.” No matter how angry I was, in that moment the ice inside me melted.

When I was sick, he was the one who stayed by my side through the night — whispering prayers, trying to bring down my fever, never letting go of my hand. When I got into university in another city, he was angry. He didn’t visit me until I graduated. Even when his train stopped at the station of that city, he never got off. Maybe it was pride, maybe the ache in his heart… But when I got married, he hugged me with tears in his eyes and said, “No matter what, I will always be by your side.” In that moment, all my resentment disappeared.

Years passed, and I became a mother. My father treated his grandchildren with a tenderness he never showed me. He played with them, joked with them, was patient. Perhaps he was making up for what he couldn’t give me.

Then dementia began. His movements grew slower, his silences deeper, his connection to the world fading away… One day, while changing his diaper, it struck me: once upon a time, he was the one trying to bring down my fever, and now I was the one holding his hand. Life was completing its circle. They were hard times — for him, and for us.

The hospital was another painful waiting room. Each visit, we found him in a different state. One day, as he lay in fever with his eyes staring into the distance, I realized he was seeing another world. He was in between. With tears in my eyes, I prayed to God to ease his way. One day, as I hugged him, I whispered, “Dad, I love you so much.” He pulled off his oxygen mask and, with great effort, whispered back, “We love you too, my daughter.” Those were his last words… Soon after, he was intubated.

During every visit, I told him stories from our past — the swing, the bedtime tales, the chocolate-scented evenings… I said goodbye by holding him close.

On the day he passed away, I said farewell to his body. As I washed him, my hands trembled while I stroked his head. At the grave, I was the one who threw the first handful of soil. Only one sentence left my lips: “Oh, my dear father… oh!”

In the cycle of life, the story of a father and daughter ended this way. As a child, my dreams reached for the sky; now they sank heavy in the scent of the earth. But I know this: with every prayer, every breeze, every rustling leaf, his voice is still there — “No matter what, I will always be by your side, my daughter.”

Thank you for reading.😊

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