CONSOLATION

It's almost night when I wake up to the voices of the doctors in my father's room. I am still swaddled in my his arms, and he is still closing his eyes to the pain while the doctors are readying the meds. I strive as much as possible to slip out of his grip without alarming him, but I flunk eventually. He peels his weak eyes, and I clench his hand as he tries to catch a hold of me.

Leaving him must have impacted him so much, and with a dreadful feeling of fear. I blame myself. I haven't stopped fathoming over how different things would be right now if only I didn't do what I did, and neither have I ceased reprimanding myself for all that is ensuing. Choices, they say, have consequences, and I am having a bitter sense of what precisely that means. How I wish I could get a chance to change a thing, but woe unto me, this is irreversible. I'll have to nurse these wounds I myself inflicted on myself and try to learn that running away from anything isn't ever a solution, and I am learning t