guiding me

CHAPTER 1: THE WORLD WENT DARK Nath was ten years old. Yves was five, and Donn was only three. At that age, I was still trying to understand the world around me. There were things I knew because I had seen them happen, things I understood because someone had explained them to me, and other things that made no sense at all. I didn't always know how to put my feelings into words. Sometimes, I couldn't even explain to myself why I felt the way I did. That weekend began like so many others. Every weekend, the five of us had a habit of returning to the countryside. It was part of our routine, something we did so often that I never thought much about it. Mom, the three children, and I would leave first, while Dad followed us later. There was nothing unusual about that arrangement. We knew he would come after us, and there was no reason for me to think that this particular weekend would be any different from the others. When we arrived, we began playing in the yard. Time passed as we played, but Dad still hadn't shown up. I kept wondering when he would arrive. I was used to seeing him come after us, but that day, the waiting seemed to stretch on. Eventually, I went to Mom. "Mom, isn't Dad here yet?" She answered as though there were nothing to worry about. "He's already here." Her answer surprised me. If Dad was already there, then why hadn't I seen him? "Then where is he?" I asked. "He's out in the rice fields, bringing in the rice." That was when I understood why I hadn't seen him. Dad was working in the fields. The harvesters had been there since morning, and he was helping bring in the rice. The explanation was simple enough. Dad hadn't disappeared. He was nearby, doing what he needed to do. Still, I wanted to see him. "Oh!" I exclaimed. "Then I'll go meet him by the rice field, Mom!" "Go ahead," she said. I didn't need to be told twice. I left to find him, eager to see my father after waiting for so long. At ten years old, I didn't need a special reason to be excited about seeing him. He was my dad, and I wanted to go meet him. When I reached the edge of the rice field, I looked into the distance. There he was. I could see a small boat carrying him and a load of rice stalks. He was making his way toward me, bringing the harvest back from the field. Even from a distance, I recognized him. My excitement rose immediately. "There's Dad!" I shouted the words with joy. After waiting and wondering where he was, I had finally found him. I could see him coming closer, and all I wanted was to greet him. I had gone there for that very reason. But something happened when he approached. I cannot explain it in a way that makes complete sense. One moment, I was happy to see him. The next, when he was close enough for me to speak to him, the happiness seemed to vanish. I stood there looking at him. The excitement I had felt only moments before was gone, and I could no longer bring myself to greet him. I had wanted to see him so badly that I had hurried to meet him, yet now I couldn't even say hello. I didn't understand what was happening inside me. Dad noticed my silence. "Nath... aren't you going to say hello to Dad?" He was speaking to me, but I couldn't answer. I stared at him without saying a word. I knew I was supposed to respond. I had come all that way because I wanted to see him, and now that he was right in front of me, I couldn't seem to do the simplest thing. I didn't know what to say. Something felt different between us. I could feel it, but I had no explanation for it. I couldn't tell whether I was afraid, sad, confused, or feeling something I had never experienced before. All I knew was that the happiness I had carried with me on the way to the rice field was no longer there. Then the tears came. I began to cry. Dad had asked me a simple question, one I should have been able to answer without thinking. Instead, I stood before him in silence, unable to explain why I was crying. There was no conversation that followed, no explanation that made things clearer. I didn't tell him what I was feeling because I didn't know what I was feeling myself. Eventually, I turned around and went home. Dad returned to the rice field. That was how our meeting ended. I had gone to find him because I was happy he had arrived, but I left without properly greeting him. Even now, when I remember that moment, the part that stays with me is how suddenly my feelings changed. I had been calling out to him from a distance. I had been excited to see him coming toward me in that little boat, carrying the rice stalks. Then he was close enough to speak to me, and I couldn't answer. I didn't understand it then. After returning home, I went back to playing with my friends. The day continued. I played as I had before, and the strange moment at the rice field remained something I couldn't explain. I didn't know what it meant, and I had no way of knowing what was going to happen next. There was no reason for me to imagine that the ordinary afternoon would turn into a day I would remember for the rest of my life. For a while, everything continued as usual. Then, at around five in the afternoon, several people arrived. They were carrying someone, and they were crying. Their voices reached us as they came, repeating words that I didn't know how to understand. "Ally is dead! Allu is dead! Ally is dead!" The words were repeated again and again. The people were weeping, and their cries spread through the village. Soon, everyone seemed to be crying. The atmosphere changed, and the ordinary world I had known only moments earlier no longer felt the same. I heard them say that Ally was dead. I heard the same words over and over, but hearing them didn't mean I understood them. What did it mean to be dead? I was ten years old, and I had never fully understood what death was. I knew the word people were saying, but I didn't understand what it meant when they used it to describe someone I knew. I couldn't make sense of what was happening around me. People were crying. They were saying that Ally was dead. Something terrible had happened, but I couldn't understand what it was or what it meant for us. Instead of staying among the others, I moved away. I found a place behind a stack of rice and hid there. Away from everyone, I began to cry by myself. I didn't know what to do with the things I was hearing. I didn't know what question to ask first, or whom I should ask. The people around me seemed to understand the meaning of those words. Their crying told me that something was wrong, something serious enough to make the whole village mourn. But I didn't understand. I stayed behind the rice stack, crying and trying to make sense of it all. Why were they saying that Ally was dead? What did that mean? What had happened? The questions came, but I couldn't find the answers. I wasn't ready to face everyone. I didn't know what I would say if someone asked me what was wrong. I could barely understand what I was hearing myself. So I remained hidden. At some point, someone began looking for me. "Where is Nath?" I heard the question. I slowly came out from behind the rice stack, wiping the tears from my face. I had been crying alone, away from the people who were gathered together, and now someone had noticed that I was missing. When I came out, someone asked me what I had been doing back there. "What were you doing behind there?" I didn't answer. I had no explanation to give. I had hidden because I couldn't bear the confusion and the crying around me, but I didn't know how to explain that to anyone. I didn't even know whether I understood my own feelings. The person then told me to come along. "Come on. Let's go see your father." Your father. Those words made me ask another question. "Where is he?" I said. "Upstairs," came the answer. So we went up. I followed, still not fully understanding what was happening. I had heard the villagers crying out that Ally was dead. I had seen people carrying someone. I had hidden and cried alone. Now I was being taken to see my father. I didn't know what I was about to find. When we arrived, the place was full of people. They stood in lines, one after another. There were so many of them, and they were all caught up in the same sorrow. Tears filled their eyes, and they were crying as they gathered around. I looked at them, trying to understand what had happened. The sight of so many people mourning was difficult to make sense of. I knew something was wrong, but the word dead still seemed distant and confusing. I couldn't connect it to the father I knew, the father I had gone to meet by the rice field earlier that day. I had seen him. I had seen him coming toward me in the little boat filled with rice stalks. I had called out to him. He had spoken to me, asking why I wasn't greeting him. I had stood there, unable to answer. Then I had gone home, and he had returned to the field. Now I was here, surrounded by people who were crying. My world had gone dark. I couldn't speak. I couldn't find a way to understand what I was seeing. The words people had been repeating earlier were still in my mind, but I didn't know what they meant for me. I turned to Mom. "What's wrong with Dad, Mom?" I needed an answer. I wanted someone to tell me what was happening, to explain why everyone was crying and why I had been brought there. Mom answered me. "He's sleeping, sweetheart." Sleeping. That was what she told me. I tried to understand her answer. If Dad was sleeping, then perhaps that was why he wasn't speaking. Perhaps that was why he wasn't responding to anyone. But I had questions I couldn't answer. I went closer to him. I sat beside my father and began to cry. "Dad... Dad..." I called his name, waiting for him to answer me. He didn't. I called him again, but there was no response. I sat beside him, crying, unable to understand why he wasn't speaking to me. Only a short time earlier, I had wanted to see him so much that I had gone out to meet him. I had watched his little boat approach, and I had shouted with happiness when I recognized him. When he came close, I couldn't greet him. Now I was beside him, calling his name, and he still wouldn't answer. I didn't know what to make of any of it. Mom had told me that he was sleeping, but I didn't understand why he was sleeping like that. I couldn't understand why he didn't respond when I spoke to him. I had never imagined that I would have to sit beside my father and call his name without receiving an answer. I stayed there crying. Eventually, I left. I don't remember having understood anything by the time I went outside. The words people had spoken hadn't given me the answers I needed. I had seen my father, but I still couldn't understand what had happened to him. The next day, I was still waiting for him to wake up. Dad hadn't woken up. That was the part I couldn't understand. If he was sleeping, as Mom had told me, why was he still asleep the following day? I asked again. "Why isn't Dad waking up?" I wanted someone to explain it to me in a way I could understand. I had already asked questions the day before, but nothing had made sense. Now another day had come, and Dad still hadn't answered me. The answer I received was much like the one I had heard before. "He's sleeping very deeply, sweetheart." I listened, but I couldn't make sense of it. "I don't understand!" I said. I truly didn't. I knew what it meant when someone went to sleep. I knew that a person who was sleeping could wake up again. But this was different, and I couldn't understand why. I had called Dad, but he hadn't answered. I had sat beside him and cried, but he hadn't spoken to me. Now I was being told that he was sleeping very deeply, yet no one could tell me when he would wake up. I was still trying to understand what everyone meant when they said he was dead. I didn't know how to reconcile those words with what I was being told. The villagers had cried that Ally was dead, while Mom had told me that Dad was sleeping. I couldn't understand how both could be true, or why nobody seemed able to explain it in a way that made sense to me. I was only ten. I didn't have the understanding that I would need to make sense of what was happening. I could see the tears, hear the crying, and watch people gather around my father, but I couldn't grasp what his death meant. I only knew that he wasn't answering me. And I didn't understand why. Monday came. That was the day we were told Dad would be buried. The word buried was another thing I had to face without fully understanding everything that was happening. People were preparing to take my father away, and I was expected to follow along with the others. I had already seen him lying there without answering me. I had already asked why he wouldn't wake up. Now the day had come when he would be taken to the place where he was supposed to rest. They wrapped him in cloth. I watched as the preparations were made. My father was being wrapped, and I was still struggling to understand why all of this had to happen. The people around me seemed to know what they were doing, and the funeral continued according to the customs they followed. Then we, the three children, were told to step over his wrapped body. Yves was five. Donn was three. I was ten. We were told to do it, and I still don't know why. I remember that part of the funeral, but I cannot explain the reason behind the instruction. I won't pretend to understand something I didn't understand then and still cannot explain now. It happened, and it remains part of what I remember about the day we buried my father. After that, we waited for a little while. Then the people began moving together to take Ally to the place where he was supposed to be buried. The day continued, even though I wasn't ready for what was happening. People were moving, and I had to follow. Dad was being taken away, and I couldn't understand how the day had come to this. There had been a time when I could look into the distance and see him approaching in his little boat. I could call out to him, happy that he was coming. There had been a time when I could go looking for him because Mom told me he was in the rice field. Now I was following people who were carrying him to his grave. I didn't know how to understand the difference between those moments. I only knew that things were happening, and I couldn't stop them or make them make sense. When we arrived at the burial site, there were prayers and speeches. People gathered, and the ceremony continued. There were words spoken over my father, and people took part in the prayers. I was there among them, but I couldn't fully take in what was happening. I knew this was his funeral. I knew that people had come to say their goodbyes. But knowing that something was happening wasn't the same as understanding it. I was still the child who had asked why her father wouldn't wake up. I was still the child who had heard the villagers shouting that Ally was dead without understanding what death meant. I was still the child who had gone to the rice field expecting to greet her father, only to find herself unable to speak when he came close. Now, as the prayers and speeches came to an end, the moment I had been dreading without fully knowing how to name it was approaching. They were going to put Dad into the grave. After the ceremony, they began lowering him into it. I couldn't bear to watch. Seeing my father wrapped in cloth had already been difficult for me. I had watched him lie there, unable to answer me, while everyone around him cried. I had tried to understand why he wouldn't wake up, but the answers I received had only left me confused. Now he was being taken into the grave. I couldn't stay there and look. I moved away from the others and hid farther back, away from the place where they were burying him. I didn't want to see what was happening. I couldn't bear the sight of my father being put into the ground. I had no words for what I felt. I couldn't explain why I had been so excited to see him at the rice field and why that happiness had disappeared when he approached me. I couldn't explain why I had cried behind the rice stack when the villagers arrived. I couldn't understand why everyone said he was dead when Mom had told me he was sleeping. And I couldn't understand why he had to be buried. I had questions, but there were no answers I could make sense of. So I hid. And there, away from the others, I cried. I cried harder than I ever had before. The tears wouldn't stop, and I was struggling to breathe between them. I couldn't hold back what I was feeling. I had reached a point where I could no longer bear to watch, and all I could do was move away and cry. I was ten years old. I had lost my father, though I still couldn't fully understand what that meant. I knew he wasn't answering me. I knew everyone had been crying since the previous afternoon. I knew he had been wrapped in cloth, and I knew they were putting him into a grave. But I couldn't understand why. The father I had gone out to meet was the same father I was now watching everyone bury. The father who had spoken to me at the rice field was the father I had called beside him, hoping he would answer. He hadn't answered then. He hadn't answered the following day. And now they were taking him away. I couldn't bear to watch it happen. I stayed away from the burial, crying until I could hardly breathe. I had never cried like that before. There was no way for me to make sense of what I was feeling, no explanation that could help me understand why my father would not wake up. All I could do was cry. That was how I remember the day my father was buried. The people had gathered. The prayers and speeches had been spoken. Dad had been wrapped in cloth, and the three of us children had been told to step over him. Then the people had taken him to the grave, and I had hidden because I couldn't bear to see them put him into it. I was ten years old, and I still didn't understand death. I only knew that Dad was gone from the place where I could see him, call his name, and hope he would answer. And behind everyone else, away from the grave, I cried for him.