🌐#009 A Letter to My Late Father | Facing the Present Moment

Yesterday, I went to see a professional of the heart.
I tried counseling for the first time in a serious way. I brought a paper with questions I had for my "late father." I had thought that counseling was something that would answer those questions. I believed that if I threw my questions at the counselor, I would be told the answers.

I realized early on that things were different.
The counselor asked me questions. It started with me answering them. They asked me skillful questions. Questions that, when answered, brought something else to the surface.

I became absorbed in answering those questions. Because I desperately wanted to know the answers.

As I answered, I noticed that my answers were becoming slightly different from what I had said earlier. But that didn't matter. As the memories in my head came out little by little, I realized they were misaligned with the perceptions I had held myself.

The feelings that had been lumped together were separated into three distinct sensations as they were unraveled by answering the questions.

The feeling I had called "unpleasant" was actually a mix of "frustration," "regret," and "sulky emotions."

The counselor said, "It's not too late to start now."

I promised to try visiting the grave.

After that, when I talked to the professional of the heart, they said, "Please forgive your parent."

Huh? I wondered if I hadn't forgiven my parent. Because I had assumed that I had. And so, I thought about it deeply.

I wanted to know what had happened to me so that my childhood self could be satisfied. My childhood self is a part of me. Another version of myself living inside my heart. The fact that I wanted that version of myself to be satisfied meant, in other words, that "a part of me had not forgiven my parent."
Could I forgive them? I wondered.

I became unsure of how to report these "frustrating," "regretful," and "sulky" feelings at the grave.

"A grave, huh..."

I thought.

What is there if I go there? I had felt that the "consciousness of my father" in his living state remained there. But that's not it. What is there is just "calcium." My "father" has become an inorganic substance, placed in a white ceramic container under that cold black stone.

In the end, people become "inorganic substances."

No matter how much he made me feel "regretful," "frustrated," or "sulky," he is just "calcium." The same as a stone. If there were an Earth thousands or tens of thousands of years from now where humans were gone, the grave would break and mix in with the surrounding stones—that is the kind of thing it is.

I am letting my feelings be troubled by such a thing.

"What was that all about?"
I am being made to think that.

My "father's consciousness" has long since gone somewhere else. He is no longer saying this or that to me. Perhaps spirits or souls exist. But that has never conveyed its will to me, nor has that soul spoken to me in my dreams.

Yet, only in my memories, like a broken tape recorder, the play button is pressed, it is repeatedly rewound, and the play button is pressed again.
The actual entity is no longer there.

I often became the wind.

When I became conscious of that, my heart felt lighter.

I used to think that after you die, you might turn into the wind.

When I was about to leave the counseling room, the counselor noticed the cardigan I had left behind and called out, "Don't forget this."

I really do forget things and leave them behind quite often. It was a trait of mine.

For a long time, whenever it was pointed out to me, it felt natural to reflexively say,
"Oh, you're right."
.

My father teased me about that ever since I was a child.

Since my father passed away, I am no longer teased. I feel like I am finally being told that it is okay to remain just as I am.

Perhaps I feel like I was told that many times in my memory, when in reality he might not have said it that often. But once something is said to you, it remains in your heart as a memory forever.

That is why I felt I shouldn't express my honest feelings. Now, I feel that I won't be teased even if I let my honest feelings out. I feel that I don't have to be ashamed.

There is still a part of me that hasn't fully forgiven him, and I think that is okay, too.

Has my father changed at all since he passed away? Or do you not change once you are dead? Is he at least a little bit concerned about what is in my heart? I cannot imagine it, and that makes me sad. I am just sad, and the tears come.

Did he actually see that I was trying my best? That I was doing my best in my own way, despite my limitations?

I felt like I wanted to ask him that in front of his grave.

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