Your blood runs through the arteries of your first born

Father, sometimes I wonder. I wonder what rigorous occurrences that you had to go through that eventually shaped you into the person you are today. I wonder whether you were once a person made out of the same material as clouds — soft, welcoming, and gentle — before eventually being burned, forged, and twisted into the harsh and cold metal you are.

Father, I often wonder what grandfather ever did to you. Were you also a starry eyed kid whose childhood was robbed as I was? Were you a person who knew what love is before things eventually distorted the definition of love for you? It seemed to me that you had a clear and beautiful vision of what you wanted for your life, but somehow, you failed to turn it into reality. I wonder whether when you see the reality of things now, did you see flashes of what things could have been if you had just been more gentle to yourself?

Father, we don’t often see each other eye to eye, yet in every resilient eye you gave me, a little flickering spark of love was evident. Most of the time our words exchanged, rage was the only language that we both understood; was rage the only way grandfather could express himself to you? Father, I wonder whether you ever contemplate that being tender would ever make you feel weak as that was what grandfather had always told you.

Father, I see myself in the way you convey your thoughts and emotions. I see myself in you whenever you subtly try to be more forbearing towards me and mother, as though you were trying to emulate the love your own mother had always shown you.

Father, you used to throw me bricks whenever I tried to build my sandcastle. Your words used to shrill through my heart like a razor cut, breaking the wall of love I had built for myself. Your wrath used to make me cry for endless nights with only the argent moonlight as my consolation. Yet, you somehow changed.

Father, on each and every second we spend on Earth, each rotation of the world slowly soothes you into a wiser being, somehow magically growing yourself like a seed rising out the thawing white snow and turning yourself into a red rose. You grow older, and in each moment I spend with you, I understand why you morphed into this figure that used to haunt me. Despite your wailing roar every time the Moon revealed herself from her indigo veil, I now understand that it is how you assert the love that hides deep inside you; your definition of love that always leaves my soul to bleed. I understand how the universe has failed you, how you had to become the person you are now because of the wolf pack that raised you.

Father, forgiveness might be something that is still a long way to go for us, but with each course of the moonlight, I can feel the flush of your love flowing through my heart.

And today, you still stand strong, even with your distinct version of love that I had yet able to understand. In every twilight, you heave smoke out of your lungs and replenish your soul with a bitter cup of coffee. As the Sun slowly hides himself beneath the horizon, I started to understand that despite our differences, we both know that we hold the same bountiful amount of love for each other. It might be small compared to the love we have for mother, but I can still see it gleaming underneath the mantle of your toughness. And once the daybreaks, we both finally managed to see eye to eye for one moment in our lifetime, in clarity, in sincerity, and in tranquility.

— ⟢