Cherry Blossoms and My Father’s Death

Today 27 years ago my father died and the Japanese cherry trees blossomed in The Hague.

It struck my mother that such beautiful flowers could bloom in such mournful times.

We noticed it during our evening walks, with too many child hands for one parent to hold.

The parks coloured pink. If a gust of wind brushed past the old trees, then the air scented sweet and black.

If I touched them, the petals felt soft and fragile. One could easily pull them apart.

And yet, in the years that followed we overcame our loss, with courage, love and black humour.

Especially because of my mother, who raised her children without him, sadly and strongly, as women can do.

My pain has long gone, without festering, thanks to her. Even if I see the tree under which he died, I feel nothing.

But then, if I hear I take after him — my gaze, how I interlace my hands on my chest, certain words.

Then I feel something. For never will I see that for myself. I will never get to know him.

This year the cherry blossoms came early, in February, March. That is when my birthday is, my sister’s, my father’s.

Now, on the day he died, the blossoms do not even linger on the paths of my park.

Merely in words they exist, for example in those of the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō:

Cherry blossoms —

lights

of years past