Tomorrow is my 18th birthday, but I feel so incomplete and unhappy. Since I was born, my grandmother was the one who took care of me. I can see that my father tried so hard to syncretize with me but he seems to struggle a lot. I'm trying my very best to understand him but sometimes, I just really can't. He can't even look at me straight in the eye. He even talks arduously to me.
After having our dinner, my father handed me a small box with a note saying to open it on my 18th birthday. My father said that it's from my mother. He hugged me tight and whispered sorry and i love you. I didn't notice that a tear fell from my eye and the next thing I knew, I can't stop from crying. While he was hugging me, he told me that whatever happens, don't blame yourself for anything. To accept everything and try to understand everything even though it's hard. I wiped my tears and told him that I love him more than anything in this world - apart from my grandmother of course.
After that short sappy moment with my father, I hurriedly went to my room. At exactly 12 AM, I opened the box revealing an old diary. The first entry was all about the day when the doctor announced that my mother was pregnant. I can feel that she's very happy writing, even though the doctor also announced that she cannot be pregnant because of her health. My eyes started to become misty as I continued to read my mother's diary.
How can I be happy after I finished what I just read? After all this time, I was the reason behind my mother's death. That's why my father is struggling to look at me straight in the eye. That's why my father is always keeping me safe at all cost even though he's emotions are in chaos.
I don't know what to feel. My father asked me to not blame myself, but how? How can I not blame myself? How can I accept the fact that my mother chooses to die for me to live? How can I accept the fact that my father is struggling because he was stunned with the news that my mother needs to choose between her life and me at the very moment my mother was in the delivery room?
What are you feeling right now mom? Are you watching me? Are you happy? Why did you choose me? Why mom, why? But thank you mom, thank you for letting me leave.
Now, I understand why my father is very uneasy around me. My father had no idea about my mother's well-being, for she hid the truth to him. She knows that my father wanted to have a happy and simple life with a mother and child in it. She's 100 percent sure that if she told her health condition to my father, he will oppose his own liking in having a baby. My father will choose to have a happy life without a child. My father will choose my mother over having a baby. For having me.
