Sunday, November 9, 2014

My father, my inspiration – a tribute

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





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