He was late again. It was
9.30 in the night but work finished at 6.00 p.m. He had brought home
the monthly groceries, using it as an excuse for getting late. Practically
everyone knew about his “other woman”, but then it was normal in the
circumstances, he was human after all wasn’t he? The usual
response came from his wife, “why did you bring this? I asked you to bring
sugar instead.” This was just the start, it would begin with her
accusing him of bringing home the wrong things to “you ruined my life”. I
knew how deal with the constant nagging, just concentrate on something else,
read a book, lock myself in my room and listen to the radio, it usually worked. But
then again it was not directed towards me, but to the only person I loved, my
father.
Their’s had been a happy
marriage until I was born. First it had been what they called “post natal
depression” which was supposed to cure naturally after a few months. But even
after a year she was still shouting, screaming, throwing things around, beating
us and blaming dad for everything. He was devastated and refused to
accept what fate had thrust upon him, always hoping that that “other good
doctor” would be able to cure her. Somehow through it all, he never let
the torment show, hiding it behind his twinkling eyes and infectious
smile. He took it as another challenge in his life, as were the many
others he had encountered before, and shouldered the responsibility of a
growing child and mentally ill wife without a grumble.
Tonight he looked tired,
sweaty and his usually mischievous face looked preoccupied and wrinkled.
He wasn’t even paying attention to my class science project I was trying to
explain to him, which was something very unlike him. I felt irritated,
but I soon forgot the difference in him as we were laughing our sides out while
watching the nature program on T.V. You see he had this flair of being
able to bring every character on the screen closer to you by creating a story
encircling that animal’s or person’s life, even that Baboon’s that yawned
lazily into the camera.
It was my father who introduced me into
that limitless world of nature by arousing my curiosity by questioning the purpose,
existence or habits of an animal. Every animal that entered
our garden had a name and a story behind it. I could never recollect a
day that he left for work without playing a game of hide-and-seek with our cat.
As the story goes, my
father had wanted a son as all chauvinistic fathers did, so when I came around,
being one belonging to the fairer sex, he had stormed out of the labour
room. As time went by however, I was to fill the role of a son he never
had. When my friend’s were busy playing with Barbie dolls, I was climbing
trees and doing the gardening. I was never forced to do these things but
I always preferred his company to my mother’s. There would be countless
hours of bird watching and when Hayley’s comet visited earth on it’s 76 year cycle,
guess who were roaming the streets late in the night and in the wee hours in
the morning trying to get a glimpse of it?
But now, as I had entered
my early teens, our relationship had turned into something different. I
didn’t want to be “daddy’s little girl” anymore. I wanted something
different from the idolatory concept I had of my father, I wanted to be his
best friend, I wanted to be able to tell him anything that was on my
mind. I discovered that the feeling was mutual.
Our trips to the temple for
worship soon became voyages of discovery of each other. We would express our
hopes and fears, reflect on our lives and discuss how we wanted our lives to
be. But there was one thing we had learned to face, we had long given up
on the hope that my mother would be “normal” and become the Amma I had always
wanted, or more importantly for dad, the woman he once knew and had fallen in
love with.
It was only now that I was
beginning to see who my father really was. The person behind that eternal and contagious
smile.
One day I came across him
going through some old photographs. He caught me watching him and he beckoned
me to sit next to him while he explained each photo to me. The one that
intrigued me the most was a group photo of my father looking in his teens, with
a group of old men. “Dad, what are you doing here with all these old
men?” I asked. He took the snap from my hands and looked at it with a
reminiscent smile playing on his lips: “well, as you know my father died when I
was sixteen years old, so in order to help my mother with the finances at home,
I decided to work as an English teacher. I was the youngest person on my
staff, you know” he added “ I had to cycle seven miles everyday to go for
work.” I suddenly felt extremely pampered.
I looked again at that
young boy, smiling back at me in the picture. My father hadn’t changed
that much. He still had the same square face with those eyes accompanied
by long eyelashes, he was tall and slightly on the dark side. Even now I
still had a problem taking him to school fairs with me because the teachers
would shamelessly stare at him. Even when I was about five years old, I
felt that he was the most handsome man I had ever seen and I used to promise
myself that I would marry him, I even told him so myself!
My father had been the
youngest of eight children and who had to suffer the most when his father died
when he was just sixteen years old and his mother two years later. Life
had been extremely difficult for the family but since he was the youngest his
brothers and sisters had tried to fill the void of his parents, however my
father had decided to accept his responsibilities. As one who believed
strongly in the merits of education, he took every opportunity to learn
whatever, whenever possible. It was this sheer determination that was to
earn him a post in England in the Sri Lankan High Commission seventeen years
later.
Browsing through a box of
his old books, I discovered that my father had studied a bit of everything,
from English literature to History, Mathematics and from Economics to Law.
However never had he completed the full course in any of the subjects.
Searching for an explanation I asked him why? He simply
answered without a tinge of regret “well I am a Jack of all trades
but a master of none. The funniest thing is that I decided to make my
profession of a subject I had studied least of all, Accountancy!”
Out of the moments I spent
with my father, those I cherished most were the ones of playing the board game,
Scrabble with him. It became a real “Dad and me” thing, where my main aim
would be to beat him at the game one day, at least by one point. We would play
the game nearly everyday of my holidays and if he would ever refuse my offer to
play, I would create a pathetic picture by playing solitaire Scrabble, which I
knew would invariably pull at his heart strings! He would finally succumb
to my forlorn and soulful eyes turned upon him and play with me. Well
somehow, this being my fourteenth year of existence, I managed to beat
him. The fruits of my victory were so sweet as I had FINALLY earned my
moment of self satisfaction. But very soon, I felt guilty of beating my
father. However I never beat him at the game again. It was always a
series of him challenging words that I had obviously created out of sheer
desperation, but 90 percent of these words never failed me, by appearing boldly
in two voluminous Compact Oxford Dictionaries which my father would have cursed
the creation of. I still remember my father in exasperation creating a
new rule stating that words found only in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary could be
used for the game.
Tonight my mother picked up
another argument with him, while we were enjoying “Life on Earth”. She threw a
glass of water at him. I had advised dad on how to deal with the daily
nagging.. just simply ignore it. Tonight for the first time in my life I heard
my father complain, he told me “I just can’t take this anymore”. The
words wrenched at my heart and I just wanted to cry and give him a big
hug. Suddenly it all seemed so unfair, as I asked myself “Why my father,
why my mother, why me?
Throughout the rest of the
night my father was acting contrary to his normal self. He said he was
having a bad headache and he was finding it slightly difficult to move his left
arm.
By morning I had forgotten
about his ailment and I concentrated on the science exhibition that was being held
in school.
***
My class won the science
exhibition in the middle school category and grade. As I looked out of
the window I felt as though I was on the top of the world. Standing
outside the window I saw my cousin staring at me which somehow gave me a cold
premonition and made my skin prickle. I didn’t even want to go to him and
ask him as to why he was there, but I had to. Even before he spoke I knew
it had to have something to do about dad. “Mami’s in hospital and I think
that you should get there quickly.” You couldn’t miss the urgency in his
voice. Like me he was another who adored my father. It was
difficult not to.
Fifteen minutes later I was
at his bedside looking at his form disbelievingly. This could not be my
father. He was lying on a bed in a ward with just a sheet covering his
body. He looked lifeless. I had never seen him in a hospital.
The only other time I had seen him really sick was two years ago when he was
suffering from Malaria and shivering uncontrollably. Even then he had
insisted on going to see the doctor only with me. I remember feeling
proud, knowing that he had put himself in my care, I had finally realized how
much he depended on my companionship. But today it was like living a
nightmare. A tube connected to a strange contraption had been fed through
his mouth, which I overheard the nurses saying was to pump the blood out of his
stomach. He had suffered a massive stroke, which left his whole left side
paralysed. His doctor had warned him about it, my father had only just
connected the symptoms of his headache and the lifelessness in his left arm to
a possibility of a stroke this morning and made an appointment with his
specialist. However he had been too late. He had lapsed into a coma
and as the doctor opened his left eyelid, I didn’t want to believe what I
saw. His retina had turned white. I tried to convince myself that
it would return to its normal colour. The nurses and doctors began to
prod and examine him as though he were some sort of specimen in a lab. I
wanted to scream at dad to tell him to wake up and stop being sick. I
wanted to give him a hug and tell him how much I loved him.
The doctors decided that he
should be removed to the neurology unit for an operation. A metal trolley with blood
stains was brought to transport him there. The attendants would have just
dumped him on it, him being just another one of the hundred patients they had
to deal with for a day, had it not been for my indignant instructions telling
them how to handle him properly. It was night time now and the unit had
no spare beds. It was at this time that the nurses firmly told my mother
and myself to go home and return the next morning with some soup. I
wanted to stay back, but I was not allowed to do so as I was too small and a
girl, my cousin remained with him instead. I stroked his hair and gave
him a kiss. As I walked away, I turned back and took the last glance I
was to have of him alive….he was lying on that metal trolley with a white piece
of cloth covering his body, a picture that will be carved in my mind forever.
As I went home I tried to
take over dad’s role and not panic because I knew that he wouldn’t have had
wanted me to. That was one of the longest nights of my life. I felt
so empty as I tossed and turned in my bed as I had not been able to worship him
before I went to bed, a habit I never missed.
While I slept I felt as
though my heart was beating at the rhythm of my father’s. At one time my
pulse raced and reached a crescendo and at around 11:20 p.m. I felt calm and
somehow I knew that he was at peace.
Just after midnight my
cousin returned home. Something was wrong, he couldn’t even look at
me. He said nothing but suddenly I realized that he didn’t need to say
anything. His silence said the most powerful and saddest words I had ever
heard. I knew that my father had died. I later found out at around
11:20 p.m.
My first reaction was of
anger, anger that the person who had given me so much in my life had died on a
bloodstained metal trolley with only a piece of cloth covering him. I
felt cheated that I hadn’t been able to give him even a fraction of what he had
given me.
***
As I watched the smoke
rising from my father’s pyre spiraling up into the boundless, clear blue sky
two thoughts comforted me. One was that he hadn’t suffered in his time of
death and that he had finally found peace for himself and was therefore free.
I knew for certain that all his kindness and love he had showered throughout
his life and his self sacrifice would be repaid in his next life as good
Karma. Secondly, I realized that I had always been there for him and
given him more than I had vouched for in the form of my love and companionship.
***
Ten years have passed since
his death and we have organized a sermon for his death anniversary. As I
listen to the monk trying to describe a man he hardly knew, I know that even
had a hundred monks preached a hundred sermons describing him, no one would be
able to personify my father’s being.
Had my father lived, he
would have been sixty six years old now. I am twenty four, a grown woman
and doing relatively well as a lawyer.
I look back now, trying to
figure out what was the greatest thing that he gave me. I have sometimes
thought that maybe it was the gift of learning to love mother nature and her
kingdom of animals, learning to accept responsibility and never shirk from it
as he had done with my mother, the capability to appreciate the small things in
life, or to respect other people’s feelings. But I realize that the
greatest gift he gave me was his life itself and ironically even through his
death he inspired me, for during the times I gave up all hope, as I experienced
the many hardships in my life, two pictures would always flash through my
mind. One of my father cycling seven miles a day for work, the second,
the snap of him, barely sixteen years of age, smiling back at me, standing
amongst “those old men…..”
(1997)
Post script:
I submitted this for a short story
competition conducted by the English Writers' Co-operative of Sri Lanka. Even
though it didn't win anything it was highly commended and published in their
journal called "Channels" . This is a link to the online version of
the journal:http://www.ewcchannels.com/2011/10/with-love.html
