By Surjit Singh Flora
He is always in my heart. I will always love him forever…and I have so much pain in my heart.
I couldn’t believe I lost him, just like that. My heart will never heal. Underneath the calm and happy mask, pain and turmoil continues to churn.
As this weekend on Sunday June 21st we celebrate Father’s Day, the pain of having lost my father overwhelms me.
As I remember my father, tears well up in my eyes and stream down my face.
My dad always wanted to move to Canada so he could provide better education and a better life for his kids. He applies for the Canadian Visa, but it was a visitor Visa only.
After reaching Canada he sent us letter that he’s fine and happy. That letter and its many fellows down the years– all with the same content– kept coming to our doors for 11 years. Yet, even as he lived on here in Canada, his health was failing him– but fearing we would worry he never let us about his ill-health.
He spent these years in Canada as a refugee; finally after 11 years when he got his landed immigrant papers, he wrote us saying he is coming to visit us and that all of us will be moving to Canada. The day never came… but we were not to know it then. We were all happy that we would finally be together. It was to be a huge family reunion. Sadly my father did not live to see his family together as he suffered a fatal heart attack. We were shattered, in pain and in tears. And we were starving for our dad’s love.
After dad passed away, my mother sacrificed all her life to take care of us and give us everything we needed. I’m 42 today, and it’s going to be 26 years since we’ve been living here.
Yes, Canada is a wonderful country. I continue to learn new things and find new challenges, new experiences in this new life. But still so many times I can’t help thinking it was here that my dad was taken away from us. When I miss him, I want someone to hold me, give me a hug. And when I see how everyone simply dotes on their dads, gives them gifts on Father’s Day, wishes them a long, happy life, I want to do the same– but to whom can I give my Father’s Day gift and card to? Where can I get a warm loving hug, a kiss?
And it hurts, that life is so short, all too short, and the ones we love and who sacrificed so much for us are taken away from us so very early. So early, in fact, that we couldn’t even get round to telling them how much we love them.
But I guess they are the ones whom even God loves so very much.
Surjit Singh Flora lives in Toronto Canada, has been writing since he was in 8th grade, and has been published all over the world in more then 100 newspapers and magazines