Tired eyes were tingling from sitting in front of the technicolor television. The walls seemed to widen, the hall becoming elongated as I made my way to step up the stairwell. Passing by a passed-out man in a pale blue chair, I said, “Goodnight, Dad” and something like, “I love you, see you tomorrow!”, however, there was no response, only the quiet sounds of crude humor coming from the tv playing Family Guy. A family guy. Not what my dad was. Sitting in his chair, taking a sip, laughing at his show, another sip, and then quiet whimpers of grief and longing. As I crept up the creaky stairs, the grief my father had experienced many minutes ago struck me as a storm would sway a tree.  I felt my body bending and breaking as I got to my room. The rain dripped from my leaves, hitting my pillow as I buried my body in my bed. Yearning for what the man in the pale blue chair yearned for, a mother who had decomposed into the ground, both of us wishing she would return and regrow. The next day, dad would dash to work, spending as much time as he could there, trying to take his thoughts off of his grief. The next night it was the same, sip, tv plays a crude comedy show, sips again maybe plays a sad piano piece, then water falling from his leaves. His body bending over like a tree in a storm, just how mine had been. Grief affected my family how a sudden storm would strike a tree, bowing and arching, then finally shedding a few branches. Many nights matched that model until my father started to flourish, providing shade for grass to grow underneath him, us kids learning that life goes on, that you can’t go on swaying in a storm every day. 

As my father’s grief began to bloom into a mere memory, he started to step into the den, dirt-colored carpet comforting his callused feet, watching the wacky movies and television we kids watched after school, and after my father came home from work. My father started to stray away from his crude-humored shows, instead, becoming a father and a family guy. My family had become a stable shrub, my dad’s shade shielding his seedlings, allowing us to sway less in the stormy breeze that was grief. 

Now I come home from school, after a long day filled with funny phrases and laughs, to a home where my father says, “Hello, Eleanor! How was your day?”, and wraps his branches around me, enveloping me into his shade. People are unable to grow perfectly straight, without breaking or bending, however, they can experience regrowth, rearranging their remorse and regret into a moral. I learned this through my father’s prosperity. 

Tired, tingling eyes from staring at a screen all day at school, I walk down a newly familiar hallway, the brown wood all around, enveloping me with a strong comfort, as I make my way to the dimly lit living room. As I make my way into the sun, conversations filling the room ring in my ears as I continue to walk, preparing for the storm that life will eventually breeze into my life again.