The Last Remembrance Of Our Father

Apa

When I was 11 years old, my mother passed away. After her death, our father was everything. He took care and brought up us. Even our elder sister and brother assisted our father to do so.

After the death of our mother, my father became alone even if we were there with him. But we couldn´t fulfill the gap of our mother. He had to take the burden of the family alone. So, he became weak by both mentally and physically though he had the problem of blood pressure before.

It had been 15 years since our mother left. I was in Kathmandu. One morning, I saw a terrific dream. In my dream, my father fell off from the cliff of my village. He tried to catch the small trees two times but both trees pulled up. He fell down to the bottom off the cliff and he died. Suddenly I woke up and I called to the house in Dharan enquiring about my father but he was good. So, I took relief from the fearful dream.

After around two weeks of my dream, one morning I went to the institute where I used to teach the English language but I felt so nervous and lazy to teach without any reason on that day. Meanwhile, I got a call from my sister from Dharan saying that our father fell down on the road while he was receiving the greetings from one of our neighbors and he was taken to our house in a tempo. She also said that our father was unconscious at that time and he was taken to the hospital in the same tempo with my younger brother. In the hospital, the doctors gave him oxygen and took back the heartbeat. They examined everything about our father and the result came. The result was our father had the brain hemorrhage. The doctor said that it was almost impossible to take back to life. Even if you want to try, take him to the neuro hospital in Biratnagar. So, my younger brother took him to the neuro hospital in Biratnagar with the help of one of the brothers of our neighbor. He kept there in the ventilation.

Every morning he used to go to the morning walk. One of his kidneys was taken out because the kidney was not working. But another kidney also has a small size stone. For that, the doctor suggested that he had to do exercise. So, he used to go to the morning walk every day. Generally, he used to get up early in the morning. On that day, he also got up early in the morning. In our house, there was a small garden. He was so keen on watering the flower and taking care of the garden. He watered the flowered and went to the morning walk. While he was going on the road near Ranga chowk, he met a neighbor who greeted him as namaskar. He tried to greet back but he fell down but he put his one hand to the road and he tried to greet back. But again he fell down, he put another hand to the ground and greeted back to him but then he fell down to the ground as I saw the dream.

It was 25^th of Magh. On that day, we bought the tickets for the plane because my brother in law was also in Kathmandu. But the plane could not take off on that day because of the foggy climate. So, went to Biratnagar by bus. I cried all over the journey from Kathmandu to Biratnagar. I wanted to see my father as soon as possible. On the other hand, my elder brother and sister in law were in the UK. They were also trying to manage the tickets to come to Nepal. Finally, we reached the hospital and I saw my father. My father was in the ventilation. Because of the ventilation, he had artificial heart beats but he has no sense. There was no movement of his body. So, our elder sister, brother, and relatives suggested us to take back him to the house because there was no chance of his came back. As their suggestions, we took him to the house. We kept him in the house because when he was alive he used to say you don´t put me in the mortuary ward when I die. He said, “you may put me in the mortuary ward because my son was in a foreign country but don´t do so after I die.”  So, we did it as per his wish.

On the next day, our brother and sister in law also arrived. Our brother suggested us to take our father to the village where our mother was kept. We did the same. We took him to the village traveling the whole night in the taxi with our two older brothers and brother in law of our father. We did all the funeral of our father in our village and came back to Dharan and we also did the funeral of our father in Dharan as well. In this way, we bid our father forever. We have become parentless now. It has been 6 years since we deprived of our loving word Apa.

The night before of his death, my sister prepared the dinner with chicken curry but he refused to have chicken curry. After dinner, he worshiped his gods by putting on the light on the copper lamps. Then, he came back to the bed listening to the radio with the high volume. The radio was given to him by our elder brother which was brought from the UK.  

Before he died, he wanted to talk to his elder son who was in the UK which he told to his daughter. Because of the training, my elder brother couldn´t call to his father. So, he couldn´t accomplish his last wish.  But I consider the decision of our brother to take our father to the village and put him with the mother was the best decision so far. I think he will keep getting the blessings in the future as well because of his decision. Because we didn´t have any source of income, my elder brother did as much as possible to take care of our father. For me, he is the best son in the world. I also tried to make him happy as much as possible but my luck couldn´t help me. I am so sorry Apa I couldn´t do anything for you even if I tried a lot. I got the way after you left us. Your younger son also followed the same path as your elder son. So, I hope you are happy wherever you are. We miss you forever. We will be following the paths which you had shown to us. We will always try to make you happy.  You are our god, Apa. We love you, Apa.