Homecoming

Chapter 20: Sledgehammer

It has been three days since the funeral, but those last three days felt like a month. My dark days taught me that I could lose the concept of time—no sense of day nor night. Living day to day was a struggle, and the sleepless nights were worse as they outnumbered the ones where I actually got sleep.

I associated this familiar feeling with being stuck in quicksand. You couldn't make your way out of it through blunt force. You just have to wait for someone to pull you out in one swift motion—quick and easy—or have the unrelenting strength to endure the grueling process of slowly crawling out. I thought my great amount of ordeals would have at least prepared me for such a monumental loss—that those dark days would have taught me to navigate through even darker ones. I didn't expect that it could be worse—like way worse. Little did I know that they were just a preview of what was about to come. The inevitable dark cloud that always loomed over me, visible and gray.

I flicked the switch and had the courage to start the task I meant to do. I squinted from the bright glow of the bulb above me. Piles of boxes surrounded me in my dad's garage as I went through his stuff. Plastic containers stacked so high they almost reached the ceiling. This garage served like the spare room—a repository—for anything my dad could ever buy at a discounted price, thinking he could save more. Little did he know, buying stuff he didn't need won't save him any money, and he would end up spending more. But he believed in that sense of saving. I often chastised him for buying things he didn't need, but he always came up with the same answer.

Aside from his knack for buying stuff at discounted prices, my dad always—and I mean this in the lightest sense—always kept things as a souvenir. He never parted with things so easily or maybe saving things reminded him that he once had a complete family. My heart ached to know that he lived alone in this house as we left him one by one. With my mom dying, Zen leaving home early, and my personal choice to leave out of spite. With the closure I had with my dad, at least I didn't leave any stone unturned with my relationship with him. A bit of relief from the storm.

As I opened each box from this room of hoarded memories, in quick succession, I got a glimpse of his life—a supercut—and I discovered more things about him.

The boxes contained mostly photos, trophies, old clothes, and books. However, one box particularly caught my attention. It had my name written on the side. I didn't remember leaving any of my things here since I moved to New York. As my curiosity grew, I opened the box and it revealed a bunch of childhood memorabilia.

I didn't even know that my dad kept these. I didn't even know that he had these. It had most of the stuff I recalled having at some point, including a broken camera that I didn't bother throwing away. It had a few of my favorite books and a couple of handwritten letters.

The naturally untidy penmanship gave a clue on who wrote the letters. Oliver wrote them for me, in one of his many efforts to show me that he liked me.

Right from the start, especially in high school, Oliver liked writing letters and sliding them in my locker. These letters were written on anything—like on a torn page of a notebook, a napkin from that pizza place out of the city, or random receipts he probably haven't thrown out because he never emptied his pockets. The letters had a variety of messages, some of them asking me out on a date with him. Some had sappy romantic lines like I like your eyes or I still can't believe that you like me. But, the downright simplicity of the letters made them more authentic and earnest.

I read the letters and a surge of emotions drowned me. A couple of items rested underneath the pile of letters. A pair of movie tickets, a basketball jersey and a cassette tape with 'For Aki' in Oliver's handwriting on the label. The papers had so many creases, lines that showed where they got folded and unfolded. These letters reminded me how my relationship with Oliver started, loving him without any doubt despite the rocky start. He showed efforts that I didn't think of as much before. In this sense, I agreed with him. I could get particularly dense.