The burial was over. It was done. My dad had been laid to rest. His puffed up body looked so different. There was almost no resemblance between the vibrant man I once knew and the corpse laid into the ground. His siblings cried as the casket was lowered. But not me. I held it in. I was after all the new man of the house. Weakness was a luxury I could not afford. The pain would have to be dealt with later. But then the nights came or the early mornings. Asleep on my bed or alone in the bathroom. The tears flowed, the memories came rushing like a gust of wind on a cold and hot harmattan day. I had never been a cheerful, laughing, friendly kind of person but losing my dad drove me even deeper into reclusion. I sought out solitude even in my most intimate relationships. My friends could not help , they could not understand. They saw a normal face, with the tears cleaned up, and they thought I was strong, they thought I was taking the pain well. They could not have been more wrong. Somehow though, I managed to stay afloat in school, the books provided an escape and the lecturer’s voice — spitting out equations and formulas — was almost therapeutic. In the classroom I at least found some comfort. That might have saved me from falling deeper into my silent depression. At least it kept me sane enough till I found a better way of dealing with the pain. I came home one day and the mood at home was so sad. It hung in the air like the stench of a dead rat. No one was talking. I became afraid. In my disastrous attempt at bottling up my pain, at being the man of the house, that very house was crumbling. I had to do something or else everyone I cared about in my home would become like me, a porcelain vase broken to bits on the inside but with a thin well decorated layer on the outside hiding the damage. I could not remember the last time I cracked a joke or if I had even cracked one before but that day I did. And no, they did not all burst into laughter, I only got a ghost of a smile at most but it was something. I would try again. And so I did. The recluse became the comedian. I really could not shut up. We laughed about a lot. Mostly how un-funny the jokes were (they were classic dry jokes) but it helped. Without realising it, in a bid to add some humor back into our lives I was gradually stepping out of my shell. My metaphoric porcelain vase was being mended on the inside with reinforced super gluey material. The road to recovery would be long but already I was certain of one thing. I would be better than I was before. The caterpillar was gone for sure but in its place the butterfly would surely spring forth.