Dear Dad,

How have you been? It’s been exactly one year, 3 months and 18 days since you left us. I miss you every second that goes by without you. I occasionally catch myself adopting the popular self-deluding mantra about how you leaving us is part of a much grander scheme, and how you’re in a better place and all that long talk. If it was left to me, you’d be 100% be here, reaping the fruits of your labour and sweat, basking in the love and adoration of your family for the kind life you gave us and how you raised us. It is fair how God decided to just one day take you away from us to go rest with him in his abode when you could have rested here and also rested in the afterlife. I don’t think doing both is mutually exclusive, but God know b… aha! There I go again, doing that self-delusion thing again. I really wish you were still here and I didn’t have to wake up every morning and have to navigate the day in spite of this ever-lingering gut-wrenching pain that’s constantly in my guts.

The 20th of June is Father’s Day and naturally, it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. It’ll be only the second of many Father’s Days I’ll have to mark without you and I still don’t know how to reconcile how I feel about that into words. I’ve recently been in a lot of different spaces where preparations are being made for how that day will be marked, and honestly, I cannot wait for that day to pass and so I can be done with all of it.

I’ve had to hold myself from breaking down in public spaces when I think of you. At work, I sometimes take several long breaks in the bathroom to sob, while I isolate myself as often as possible at home and during social events. Everything reminds me of you. Sometime last week, Bukky and I took a drive to town to receive a parcel and we somehow got into a conversation about something upsetting that recently happened. The way she unconsciously transitioned from conversing in pidgin language into full-blown British English was very reminiscent of you.

I miss everything about you. I miss the stench of your favourite cigarette, Benson & Hedges, on you. I miss the occasional quick beers and life/relationship nuggets. I miss your irredeemably woeful way of dressing and sense of fashion — I found it insufferable but loved how confident you were about your overinflated sense of fashion and ability to differentiate authentic collections from fake ones by merely looking at them. I miss seeing you in your very predictable haircut and oversized suits. I miss how heated we used to get when debating politics because we were both always at the extreme end of different political spectrums. I miss talking to you about school and life plans, and your ever-dependable sage-like advice about how there’s still a lot of time for my life to eventually acclimatize. Well, my life is acclimatizing and it really hurts knowing you aren’t here to witness it all. I’ll give anything to reexperience one of these moments with you again — well, almost anything.

I miss you and want you to know I’m occupied by your thoughts on this special day. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Thank you for who you were and who you’ll always be. You’ll hear from me again soon, until then.

Your boy,

Sola.