The Traffic — Karla Gonzales

For the past few days, I found myself in a pit of misery as Father's Day was fast approaching for the first time without my Dad in this world. Unable to get up from bed, I was too depressed, anxious, and weak to perform even the most mundane tasks of daily living, such as taking a shower, eating food, or brushing my teeth.

It has been 4 months since he passed, and it did not help that I had to take over the business he left behind the very next day of his death. With all those suppressed emotions as I was trying to put on a professional face for the sake of keeping the business afloat, I stepped up to the role in order to appease clients and the people who worked with us. I had to appear strong and steadfast to show that business was as usual, undissolved and due commissions were still in place.

I had to cramp all 15-year’s worth of information within 4 months. Normal people get to rest in their time of grief. They don’t attend trainings, sign checks, go to meetings, make transactions, or close deals with international company CEOs.

I had to put on a show on the outside, but behind closed doors, I was a wreck in the darkness of grief and loss. Like a catatonic stagnant in her own thoughts, I just wanted to lay there and cease any sort of movement. All reason and logic went out the window. Overwhelmed with emotions and crying like an infant, I literally thought of ending it all. Ending my own existence for the pain was unimaginable.

Father's Day happened, and we visited Dad in his grave. Of course, the performing actress within me got me through the day. We ate, celebrated, and had picture-taking sessions with the family. All with a smile on my face. Unbeknownst to me, I was again going to sulk back into darkness as I saw pictures of friends on Facebook celebrating with their fathers, while on our humble table was a single empty seat that should have been Dad's.

At that moment, I literally felt the purity of jealousy— the raw, childlike sensation of envy. No amount of intelligence, beauty, or wealth can ever bring my father back to life. No matter what I do, own, know or have, I just can't take one Father's Day picture with him anymore. I cannot hold him. I cannot kiss him on the forehead nor can I hear the unique sound of his reassuring voice.

Today is no different as I found my limp, shattered self paralysed in bed again. I just couldn't get up. Hunger didn't even faze me. I just didn't wanna move. Finally, 4 p.m. came and I was able to resume body movement only to perform rituals that didn't require conscious mental activity.

I spent the rest of the day like a walking zombie, on autopilot. Just eating edible food without tasting anything. Dragging my feet and mindlessly watching television without processing any visual information, hearing without listening, and talking without feeling. If you call that living then I'm Elvis Presley.

Later today though, a thought entered my head. Actually, it was more like a memory, one from my youth. It involved my Dad and a student version of myself seated on the passenger side of his car. We were waiting in traffic, and as usual, my Dad always had to find ways to turn something as insignificant as traffic into an avenue for learning. He says, ‘Hey Nak, I have a trivia.’

‘Okay, hit me,’ I said in my usual tone of playful bravado.

‘What is the difference between a problem and a situation?’ he asked.

‘Hmmm… aren’t they the same?’ I scratched my head’

‘Not really. You see, a problem is something that has a solution. Say you don’t have money to pay for something, well, there’s always a solution to that. Either you save money, cut off your expenses, work extra hours, or find other modes of income etcetera. But a situation is different,’ he says.

‘Go on,’ I was intrigued.

‘Say you are stuck in traffic, like what we are now. What do you think is the solution to this?’ he asked me.

‘I don’t know, um… walk and leave the car in the middle of the street?’ I jokingly replied.

He let out a huge laugh. ‘That’s silly. You can’t just do that. The truth is, there is no solution to being stuck in traffic. You just have to live with it and wait it out, and that’s what makes it a situation.’

He paused for a while, allowing me to process what he just said. ‘Okay, yeah, that makes sense.’ I replied.

‘Remember, anything in life that has no solution is just a situation. It will not last long. You just have to deal with it with ease, make the most out of the time and let it pass. Like turning on the radio or singing in your car while waiting for traffic to subside. Like what we are doing now, discussing a subject and exchanging ideas while killing time…’

‘… but if you ever face a problem in your life, your first instinct should be to realise that every problem always has a solution. You just have to find it. So either way, whether you face a situation or a problem, everything is going to be okay. Do you understand?’ My father said, looking at me intently.

I paused for a while, letting him know that I took it by heart, then nodded.

I will never forget the sound of his voice when he said those beautiful words.

In retrospect, I now fully understand the bearing of what he said. He was trying to prepare me for a moment like this. The moment when I catch myself trapped in the traffic of my own thoughts and emotions when things get too overwhelming to handle. He wanted to leave me something that I can use as a weapon to shield me from my own frailties and, above all, he was training me to think like a man who is unafraid of life’s inevitable blows.

As I recall that moment, it dawned on me that my Dad did not just spend his life making a ton of senseless money to leave his children. Instead, he spent his life preparing his children for the world. Through the wisdom behind his words and actions, he made his presence eternally etched within us. Usually, it was during the fleeting moments like being stuck in traffic, carving a pineapple, or playing a simple chess game, that he moulded what we would become when push comes to shove in the future.

He knew what life out there was like and instead of sheltering us with oblivion, he made us whole in spirit so that no amount of pain or distress can be unmanageable. That being said, I now fully understand that I can whine about life’s traffic for the rest of my life and choose to be disabled by my grief. Or I can simply turn on the music and sing while waiting for them to subside, knowing that Dad made it sure that I can get up from bed with the lessons he left behind.