In the sad garden of stones I found a girl sleeping next to a particular stone, upon the stone was written, “Beneath this earth lies the one who saved his daughter’s life while giving up his own.”
When I was reading that, the girl looked up sleepily at me with beautiful greene eyes bloodshot and puffy from tears. We stared at each other for a minute and I asked her if I could join her.
She looked surprised and thought a minute and nodded her head.
While I situated, I watched her sit up, rub her eyes, kiss the gravestone lightly and mumble, “Good morning, daddy.”
She caught me watching her and she said, “Well you have read the stone and I might as well tell you the story before you ask.” I noticed her voice was sweet but sad, yet happy.
“You see, to be blunt, I was suicidal, I couldn’t think happy, I couldn’t do anything right for myself, I was pathetic to be that way, and I could talk to no one about it, I always changed the subject and said the cliche, ‘I’m fine’. My father saw through my facade, but not enough to confront me and help me, at least not then.
One night was particularly bad, people were doing the usual (being stupid) and I hadn’t gotten much sleep. When I was home, at our appartment I was getting a glass of milk in my mom’s favourite cup. (I used it when I was sad to make things better, she died a couple of years ago and that is what I look at when I need to remember her and be happy.) And for some reason, the cup slipped, fell out of my hand, dumped milk all over me and the floor, and it shattered into a million pieces.
When the cup broke, my heart momentarily did too, I fell to my knees in the glass crying. I had had enough of life. i got up, walked through the glass, not even feeling the pain and started up the stairs to the roof.
My dad was just coming home and aw the blood and milk in the kitchen and saw my back as I disappeared up the stairs. Luckily, he followed.
When I got to the roof, I was crying but I wasn’t letting it phase me, I knew I had to end all of the suffering and bullshit. I took a step closer to the edge, looked over and look a deep breath, just when I was about to take the plummet, my dad grabbed me back. He looked at me hard and he said something that will stick in my head forever,
“You look at me, and you tell me what you are doing. You think that ending your life is the best way to do things? You think taking you away from me and leaving me a lone will make me happy? Well if you do, you are the most wrong you have ever been.
Yeah, I know life is hard, it is a down-right b****, but you have to fight tooth and nail and tell that b**** where to stick it because once you get that far, life is one hell of a ride. The pain may outnumber the good sometimes, but the good in the end shines so bright that the bad runs away scared, and if it doesn’t run it gets burnt to ash.
So you need to look deep within that heart of yours and see that amazing girl that is there, and you learn that she is the love of my life, and the only good thing that shines so bright over the bad.You are my sun.”
With those words I realized how wrong I was before, and I saw what he meant. I was sobbing harder than ever and I was hugging dad so close. When I loosened my grip a bit, he stood back to look at me and when he did he got to close to the edge and he fell.
He fell off of that f*ing building and he died on impact.
My dad saved my life, and lost his in the process.
I thought about joining him, but I couldn’t let his sun die. So I got my cell out, called 911 and went down to him and held his hand until the ambulance got there.
I am now living my life for me, dad, and mom, and I couldn’t be happier.”
During her story I began to cry a little, so I wiped m eyes and said, “That is the saddest, and most inspiring story I have ever heard. But tell me, why are you lying on the ground next to his grave?”
She answered, “Every year on the date he died, I come out to the graveyard and sleep by his grave, just to tell him everything that has happened and to give the flowers and grass a little Sunshine to grow.”