I want to share what happened.
(But I want to remind everyone that this is not good news.)
Every school holiday, I go stay at my dad’s house for the whole break because my parents are divorced. Last Sunday at around 3 PM, I arrived at his house. I was told that he hadn’t come out of his room all day. We didn’t think much of it at first, because he was always like that. He often stayed up very late working and would only wake up in the afternoon. Sometimes, when he was extremely tired, he would even sleep for two days straight.
Around 6 PM, I decided to go wake him up because he hadn’t eaten anything all day. I went into his room. The lights were off, so I used my phone as a small light. Then I saw him on the floor. At first, I was confused—why was he on the ground? I went closer, and then I saw his eyes, unfocused… and there was 🩸 everywhere. That was the moment I realized he was gone.
I immediately told everyone in the house and called my mom. After that, I was just crying, walking around, feeling completely helpless. When all the family, relatives and friends arrived, many of them cried or were helping out. My older brother cried so hard he couldn’t even stand. That hurt me a lot to see, especially because he had argued with our dad just the day before, and they never got to make up.
We think the reason he passed away might be because of long-term exhaustion—staying up late, not resting properly, not eating well—and then he may have hit his head. He had just come back from a business trip two days before. Normally, he would go straight home to rest, but this time, he went to see my brother and me first. Maybe he just wanted to see us. But he ended up arguing with my brother and went back home.
We are sure that even after going home, he still didn’t rest. At 9:42 PM, he called me just to check in. Then around 2–3 AM, he called my mom. She didn’t answer, because for the past four years (since their divorce), calls like that had often been disturbing or unwanted. At some point after that, he collapsed. His head hit a sharp edge of the table, and he fell into 🩸. There was even 🥩 left on that sharp corner.
Everything happened so suddenly. Because his lifestyle had always been like this, I didn’t realize anything was wrong until much later. And now, I feel so guilty. I keep thinking—what if I had gone into his room right when I arrived at 3 PM? Would things have been different? My mom feels guilty too. She wonders—what if that phone call was actually a call for help, and not just another disturbance?
But at the same time I try to think in a different way. I don’t have any regrets between me and my dad. We talked, we stayed connected, and he even reached out to me that night. And maybe now he can finally rest.
Finally, I want to remind you all that we cannot ignore the limits of our bodies for too long, that we should cherish the people we care about and express it in the present, and not delay understanding or reconciliation to a “later” that may never come.
