The saddest day of my life.

One of the saddest days of my life, the hot sunny day of 28th of August, when the air was filled with crisp smell of tomatoes and dill, and my mum brought me to a room where my ageing father was sitting, so tiny and pale, his face almost empty of colour, as greyish as his beard.
The last time I saw him with a beard was about 20 years ago, when he came back from a two-weeks long hunting trip in depth of Siberia, carrying his hunting trophy – body of a moose, roughly cut (surely, for dramatic effect), in those huge bags that made his muscles budge under the thick woollen jumper, smiling eyes in deeply tanned skin, those eyes, I’ve been complimented numerous times about, they are sapphire blue and striking, and those blue eyes were looking back at me now, not recognising me.
He asked my Mother a few times, in a soft whisper, the sound dry leaves produce when the light breeze catches them and carries them across the asphalt, who I wad, and never really cared for the answer.
Once left in the room with him, I was scared to even look at him, and when his head was turned away, I glanced at him several times, I do not know if it was the shock I felt at how my father looked, or just enormous, enormous sadness. His once salt and pepper hair turned snow white and thin. The trembling hand on his cane looked skeleton like, with knuckle deformity protruding scarily. He was shrivelled. He appeared to have no flesh left, just fragile bones, sticking out from the oversized checked shirt, which he was wearing, and which one was a right size for him. And worst of all, he did not have all his teeth in, only the front ones. The hollows in his cheeks were deep, deathly.
I guess the blow wouldn’t be so hard if I were not a single child. But that was it, the saddest moment of my life. When I realised, that there was no father left for me. Or the old fragile man in front of me no longer had a daughter. He had my mother, and a dog, that was already dead for a year, but about who he never failed to ask my mother, if she fed her, she was still alive in his memory, and hungry, just like she always was; he had his favourite food, and his favourite radio station on, constantly humming some old jazz tunes. But no longer did he have a child. I was no longer exceptional or unique or rare in his eyes. Iw as just a stranger. Or maybe he had, the young child in his head, the little girl in checked dress and ponytails, the one I can only recognise from the old photographs.
And me, so independent and free, and suddenly, I so wanted to be recognised, somewhere inside me, I choked and cried, but outside, I just kept asking polite questions, to which he would give lonely answers, his voice a raspy sound, the only thing uniting us was the colour of our irises, the blank blue of his eyes, still beautiful, like water.
And, hopefully, the strong heart, which would go on and on even when the brain refuses to work. The saddest day of my life, when I realised that this is not the heart that loves, but the brain.

Less than a month later, on September Monday, my father died.