Skip to main content

"Dad, where's your dad?"

The question was inevitable. But this time you knew the answer. At least part of it. The part about him being in the black & white picture hanging in our study. Today (27/5/17) you brought it up early on, on a saturday morning while we were just having a little lie-in time. We somehow stumbled on the topic of who's Dad was where and you asked "Dad, where's your dad?" more because you were ready with your answer. Unlike other times, I took a moment to get my act together and take it forward. For this was one of those rarest of rare mornings when I had woken up fully aware that he was in my dream last night.

Dear Daughter,
Dreams and memories have a strange way of leaving a mark, a flavour, an aftertaste of sorts. I barely remember the dream from last night with my dad in it but I do remember he was in it. Maybe it wasn't his face, maybe not his voice (I have zero recollection of his voice) but definitely his presence that has left a definite melancholic kind of stamp on my day.
Its not a happy mark because I don't think my interaction with him or his character in my dream was a positive one. Once again, memories play a conceited-deceitful game of their own. I say once again because throughout my life I have been grappling in phases about my Dad's character, confused between other people's memories of him.
Everyone tells me how great, warm, large hearted he was. In the angst of my teens I thought how could that be true? For as far as I know he had a role to play in his demise and that of our until then normal life. Even if his role was to selfishly indulge in a pleasure of his choice. My memories of him were too few, faint and far between to show me any way out of the maze.

You will soon be four- the age forever etched in my mind when I lost him. I am already many years older than my dad ever got to be. Now, I know, despite my instincts that he, like every other person would have had good and bad in him - memories and confused dreams be damned.
Undeniably, not unlike a dream, both his once-short-lived presence and his long-lived-absence has had a mark of their own on my life, our lives. So that dear daughter is the full answer to your question- My dad is in my life choices, my character and me. He is there when I rise and he will be there in my fall. Just like everyone else's dad.
P. S.
You just came back from your ballet class and looking at me writing this letter, to future you. How cool is that 😉?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God Helps Those ...

"My aappey aappey" is your En-jabi (English + Punjabi) phrase to tell the world that you want to do it yourself. At times it is followed by a 'My Help' as a push back to any help offered to your little bundle of effort. Each time the door to your car seat is held open, it is like a challenge assigned by yourself, for yourself to climb the Everest of that seat - your own 'aappey aappey' self! There is a certain self-assured, confident style to your ascent too, even at this age. On my car, with a fairly high child seat for your little hands and knees to mount, you start with touching, toying and fumbling with the various knobs and hooks on the frame. When an easily bemused Dad gently cajoles you to proceed with your mountaineering efforts, you start climbing on the various toys, bags and other assortments lying there, before getting a foothold on the car seat itself. It doesn't take you long from there to latch onto your car seat. Once there, you make ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Daadi's next Innings

       It’s been a year since Daadi left us. It's not my intention to share the many phases and facets of my grief with you as it would be both unfair and impossible in equal measures. Impossible because its literally unlike anything else that anyone could come across and therefore words would simply fail. Unfair because my grief as a son is exactly that - mine only. Like everyone else, you would have your own version of grief in parting with your parents so there is no real need for me to make you feel mine.  Instead, I will try and share how I am coping with what is now a life that I have never seen before.  I started my earnest efforts at regular meditation a few days after Daadi left us. Although it helped in some little ways, my big reward came with a glorious vision of my mom one day. It might have been a split second glimpse of a fleeting image but it was worth the wait and one that would last me the whole lifetime.  There she was, literally o...
2 comments
Read more

Of Super Heroes and Super Mom

“I like the super hero music” - you whispered in my ear while watching the first thriller sequence during Incredibles-2. Its summer vacations for you and both of us had gone to watch the movie together. So far you were not so keen on watching movies in cinemas or watching superhero stuff at all but somehow I think watching miarulous ladubug has helped convert you into a fan of the genre. You liked the movie and came back with a couple of favorites - unsurprisingly teenaged Violet and the toddler ‘Jack Jack’ were the ones that caught your fancy. I guess you are too young to appreciate the super strengths of the dad and mom in the movie. Dear Daughter This one is short on details about you and more about things happening around you. For this has been a strangely disruptive summer and not always in a good way. Your Daadi, my mom, has been with us in UK for a while now on an Indian Passport. This summer we had a major victory. After years of complicated efforts involving money, mettle and ...
2 comments
Read more