Merrier than Heaven

My father departed 4 years ago in this month of January. Just like the rest of spoilt brat people out there, I grieve upon his loss like God had crossed me more than He ever crossed someone else. That was the first stage of sadness, they said; to face misery with anger. And then I began to take side with those hard-core pessimists who believe that God could have done better with this game of life. Why one must have cancer while others don’t? Why must one born with one leg while others have two? Why some men have 5 cars while some more posses nothing? Why God differentiate and be so unfair?

Time flies and my loneliness pushed me spiralling down below. Until one day I stumbled into my father’s diary, and this is what I found:

“This afternoon I went to drop my wife playing tennis. Of course I had to finish my milk before that, which started to taste more and more awful each day. The package of routine chemotherapy had inactive my saliva glands and now I know what a miraculous bless saliva is. At the tennis court I met the familiar ball-boy and greet him about his family and all. He said that his son was currently found ill of a cancer similar with mine, and he was only teen-ish. He showed me his son’s picture and seeing the boy’s neck swallowed with a lump as big as a mango, I cannot not crying.

I cried because I feel so lucky that with this serious illness, I don’t have to worry about my financial situation. I wept because I am grateful that I have this cancer after I experienced so many beautiful things in life, and not in such young age. I also cried because its been more than a year since I got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and despite what the doctors have said about how I will only survive the first 5 months, I am still here with my family. This evening everything turns into pure beauty and the night milk doesn’t taste so bad anymore. Tomorrow morning, I will greet the birds again and thank them because they have taught me about dancing and singing to life unconditionally. And in midday, I will go to the tennis court to help the ball-boy with his ill son.”

Right there and then I knew that my father had yet again helped me to escape out of my bitterness with his tender soul. I also knew that, many years after his passing, he witnessed everything that has happened to me; graduation, marriage, labour, and another deaths. He becomes one with the angels and communicates with me through the wind, the trees, and the rain. He lets me know that ever since, my life is nothing but a just and perfect design, and that the life we have today, might actually prettier than fantasy, merrier than heaven.