I remember the smell first. Damp earth, wilted flowers, incense burning too close to my face. People say grief comes like a wave, loud and violent. For me, it arrived quietly, like fog settling into my lungs until breathing itself felt heavy.
I was standing beside my father's grave.
Someone was crying loudly behind me, maybe a relative, maybe a neighbor. I couldn't tell. Their voices blurred together into a distant hum. The priest kept chanting, his voice steady, unaffected, as if this was just another day, another body, another ritual. But for me, the world had ended.
My father was being buried.
I kept staring at the coffin as it was lowered into the ground, as if I looked hard enough, time might reverse. As if he would sit up and say it was all a mistake. My hands trembled, but I didn't wipe my tears. I wanted to feel them. I wanted the pain. Because pain meant he had been real. That he had existed. That he had loved me.
I missed my mother too.
She had died years ago, but standing there, I felt like I had lost both of them all over again. I was alone now. Completely alone.
Someone touched my shoulder.
"Be strong," they whispered.
I hated those words.
Strong for what? For whom? My father was gone. My mother was gone. Strength had nothing left to protect.
The soil began falling onto the coffin. Thud after thud. Each sound hit my chest like a hammer. I wanted to scream. I wanted to stop them. I wanted to jump into that grave and refuse to leave.
But I stood still.
Because that's what people expected.
By the time the funeral ended, the sky had turned grey. People began leaving, one by one, offering condolences that sounded rehearsed. "Take care." "God gives strength." "He's in a better place."
None of it mattered.
I stayed until everyone left.
I stood in front of the grave, staring at the fresh mound of soil, my legs refusing to move. My father's name was written on a temporary board stuck into the ground. It looked wrong. Unreal. Like a label on someone else's life.
"I'll come back tomorrow," I whispered.
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
And then I turned and walked home.
—
The house felt empty the moment I entered.
Not quiet. Empty.
There's a difference.
Silence still holds life. Emptiness feels like something has been ripped out, leaving behind a hollow space that echoes with memories.
I closed the door slowly, as if loud sounds might shatter whatever remained of my sanity. My eyes instinctively moved to the living room wall.
Photographs.
There we were—me, my father, my mother. Smiling. Laughing. Frozen in moments that would never return.
I walked closer.
My fingers traced the glass frame of one picture. I was small, sitting on my father's shoulders. My mother stood beside us, laughing at something he had said. We looked like a normal family.
We had been a normal family.
I picked up another frame. It was just me and him. His arm around my shoulder. His proud smile. I could almost hear his voice—steady, warm, always reassuring.
"You'll be fine. You're stronger than you think."
I dropped the frame back onto the table and sank to the floor.
"I'm not strong," I whispered. "Not without you."
That night, I didn't sleep.
I just lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying every memory, every conversation, every moment I wished I could relive.
Morning came, but it didn't feel like a new day.
It felt like a continuation of the same nightmare.
—
The next day, I went back to the grave.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
It became routine.
Every morning, I would wake up, get ready without thinking, and walk to the cemetery. I would sit beside the grave, sometimes talking, sometimes just staring.
"I tried cooking today," I told him once. "Burned everything."
Another day, I whispered, "I miss her too… you know? I keep thinking maybe she'll walk through the door."
No one answered.
But I kept talking.
Because silence was worse.
Days turned into weeks.
Weeks turned into months.
Life outside continued—people going to work, children laughing, shops opening—but my world stayed stuck on the day he died. Time moved forward, but I didn't.
Grief settled into me like a permanent shadow.
Some mornings, I cried until my head hurt. Some days, I just sat there numb, staring at the name carved into the stone now placed over the grave.
I stopped meeting people. Stopped answering calls. Stopped caring about anything that wasn't connected to him.
I lived inside memories.
And memories slowly began to hurt more than comfort.
—
Two months later, I came home from the cemetery earlier than usual.
The house felt heavier that day.
Maybe because I had run out of things to say at the grave.
Or maybe because I was finally realizing he wasn't coming back.
I walked into his room for the first time since the funeral.
I had avoided it deliberately.
The air inside still smelled faintly of his cologne. His bed was neatly made. His glasses rested on the side table. A book lay open, as if he had just stepped out and would return any moment.
My chest tightened.
I moved slowly, touching things carefully, like they might disappear if I wasn't gentle.
His wardrobe. His watch. His old files stacked neatly in one corner.
And then I noticed a wooden trunk under the table.
Old. Slightly dusty. Locked once, but now the latch hung loose.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Something inside me hesitated.
Opening it felt like crossing a line. Like stepping into a part of his life I had never been invited into.
But I opened it anyway.
Inside were memories.
Letters tied with thread. Old photographs. A scarf that must have belonged to my mother. Documents I didn't recognize. A few small objects from another time.
And at the bottom—
A diary.
It was dark brown, edges worn, pages yellowed. Not new. Not decorative. Used.
Important.
My hands trembled as I picked it up.
I sat on the floor and opened the first page.
His handwriting.
There was no doubt.
I recognized the way he wrote certain letters, the slight tilt, the firmness of his strokes.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
It felt like he was speaking again.
I turned a few pages. Dates were written at the top of each entry. Some years old. Some more recent.
Most of it looked personal. Reflections. Thoughts. Things he had never said out loud.
Then I reached a page where the writing changed.
Not in style.
In tone.
The lines were tighter. The words pressed harder into the paper.
I began reading.
And as my eyes moved from one sentence to the next, my heartbeat quickened.
This wasn't just a diary entry.
It was a confession.
My fingers tightened around the pages.
"No… this can't be…"
I read the lines again.
And again.
The room felt smaller. The air heavier.
Everything I thought I knew about my father… about my life… began to shift.
There was something he had hidden.
Something big.
Something impossible.
My hands started shaking uncontrollably.
I flipped to the next page, desperate, terrified, needing to understand.
But the writing stopped mid-sentence.
As if he had been interrupted.
Or as if he never got the chance to finish.
I stared at the last words written on that page.
My throat went dry.
My mind raced.
Because if what I had just read was true… then my father's death wasn't just a tragedy.
It was connected to something far deeper.
Something dangerous.
And for the first time since the funeral, I felt something other than grief.
Fear.
I slowly closed the diary, my heart pounding loudly in my ears.
"What were you hiding from me?" I whispered.
The silence in the room felt different now.
Not empty.
Watching.
I looked at the trunk again… then back at the diary in my hands.
I knew one thing.
Whatever truth was inside these pages… it was going to change everything.
And I wasn't ready for it.
But I was going to find out.