The news of my father’s death didn’t come to me as a surprise. It was the day after I got my scholarship into college.

Liver cancer.

He had it for a while now.

I knew. Like a ticking bomb, I knew when it would explode and devour him. I knew that by the time he was dead, the vines that had imprisoned me would loosen and I would be able to move again.

But what I didn’t know was that the phrase, blood is thicker than water, was true. That in his dying moments, I would wish that he wouldn’t die and leave me. Because in his dying moments, the father that I once loved resurfaced, like a lost old memory recovered, the dust that had covered it wiped clean and I could see him clearly.

It showed me how death could bring us back to how we started, to our original selves. Vulnerable, weak, and helpless.