Ordinary, until it wasn’t
I did not know.
That is the sentence that lives inside me now.
I did not know
that the moment I had with my father
was the last one.
It was ordinary.
And that is what destroys me.
Ordinary.
No heaviness in the air.
No trembling instinct.
No voice inside me saying - hold him longer.
Just a normal day
that quietly turned sacred
because it was all I would ever have again.
And the worst part?
I cannot even remember it properly.
I do not remember what he was wearing.
I do not remember the last sentence he said to me.
Or what I said back.
If I hugged him properly.
If I pulled away too soon.
If I looked at him long enough
to memorise the lines of his face.
There is no dramatic goodbye in my memory.
No final embrace I can replay.
Just a blank space
where something should have been.
And that emptiness is loud.
If I had known,
I would have held him like I was trying to stop time.
I would have buried my face in his chest
and stayed there.
I would have told him he was my world.
That he was my safe place.
That losing him would rearrange me in ways
I would spend years trying to understand.
That I was not ready -
not strong enough -
to live in a world where he did not exist.
I would have memorised him.
Every detail.
Every breath.
But I did not know.
And then life did it again.
I did not know
that the last time I saw my mother
was also the last.
If I had known,
I would have thanked her differently.
Slower.
Deeper.
For her strength.
For her spine.
For the way she carried pain
without collapsing in front of me.
I would have apologised.
For that one conversation.
The one that now replays in my head
like it is the only thing left of her voice.
It was small then.
It is enormous now.
Because there was no later.
I thought there would be time.
Time to soften it.
Time to say sorry.
Time to sit beside her
without hospital walls and fear between us.
Time to undo the sharpness in my tone.
There wasn’t.
No chance to correct it.
No chance to say,
“I did not mean it that way.”
“I love you more than my pride.”
“I am sorry.”
And that is what breaks me.
Not just that they are gone.
But that I did not love them
like it was the last time.
Because I did not know.
Now every meeting feels fragile.
Every goodbye feels unfinished.
Every “see you later” carries a quiet panic.
What if this is another ordinary moment
that will later become sacred
because it was the last?
I hug people longer than they expect.
Sometimes too long.
I try to end arguments quickly.
I swallow pride sooner than before.
I try not to sleep on misunderstandings.
Not because I am wise.
Not because I have healed.
But because I know
what it feels like
to want one more moment
and never get it.
Sometimes I think
if the world could feel this once -
really feel it -
we would stop saving love for later.
We would stop assuming there is time.
We would stop walking away mid-sentence.
We would stop saying
“next time.”
Because sometimes
there isn’t one.