The Day Everything Quietly Changed

Assalamualaikum wbt,

Hi,

Let's continue before my memory disappears again. I was 20 when my father passed away.

I wasn’t home when it happened.

I was at a friend’s house, about four hours away. I still remember my sister coming to pick me up. The journey back felt long, but at the same time, I don’t remember much of it. Everything felt… distant.

What I remember most is the feeling.

Empty.

And underneath that, there was guilt.

I felt like I was supposed to be there. Like I shouldn’t have been somewhere else when it happened. Even though I know now it wouldn’t have changed anything, that feeling stayed with me for a while.

He passed away from a heart attack.

It happened suddenly. There was no warning, no preparation. No last conversation. No final moment to hold on to.

Just… gone.

In the days after the funeral, the house felt heavy. Everyone was sad. It was quiet, but not the kind of quiet that feels peaceful. It was the kind that sits on your chest.

We all felt it, but we carried it in our own ways.

After that, life just… continued.

I didn’t break down the way people might expect. I didn’t stop functioning. Maybe it was because I was still young, or maybe because I didn’t fully understand what I had lost.

So I went on with my daily life.

At that time, I was doing my internship. I went back to work, followed my routine, and did what I was supposed to do. From the outside, everything probably looked normal.

But something had shifted.

I remember one small moment that stayed with me. A colleague asked where I had been and why I had gone to my friend’s house.

I felt annoyed.

Not because of the question itself, but because it felt unnecessary. Like they didn’t understand what had just happened in my life. I didn’t have the energy to explain. I didn’t even know how to explain it.

So I kept it to myself.

Looking back now, I realise I didn’t really process it at the time. I didn’t sit with the grief. I didn’t talk about it much. I just kept going, as if life would slowly adjust on its own.

But something important had already changed.

The sense of safety I grew up with, the quiet assurance that someone was always there, that feeling was no longer the same.