my father....
He sits by the window. Unseeing eyes fixed at the distant orange horizon, at a sun that sets, bidding its farewell to the land, majestically making his exit. Had his eyes been able to watch the beautiful sight, he might have felt a kinship of sorts to the sun. He does not see though. He doesn’t even know that it’s evening already. I look at him, sitting impassive in the enormous, plush, leather sofa. He looks so old and frail I think, lost amidst the chair’s vast cushions. His arms draped lifelessly over the arms of the giant throne. He looks like a child sitting in his father’s armchair. In his mind too he has become a child… incoherent thoughts and lovely unreal dreams… horrendous torturous nightmares, amidst which he cries for comfort. But he is not a child…. I am his. He has not realized how long I have been standing at the doorstep, watching him. I reluctantly give up my minds wanderings, to walk into his room, treading gently on the carpet floor, so as to not have his thoughts interrupted. He stirs, for all my caution, looking my way. How does he always know? They say, when your eyes give up at an early age, you’re other senses take over to bridge the gap. Considering how old he was when he lost the use of his eyes, I’d say that it was not the case with him. In his case, I think it is more the fact that when you love someone as much as he does me, you don’t need any bodily senses to feel the person. Yes, my father loves me. As soon as I think this I think of all the times the word ‘love’ is used by many an unworthy tongue, wagging sometimes in deceit, sometimes lost in confusion, fear or simply helplessness. And I reproach myself for not finding a better word, for my father’s sake. No, my father didn’t love me. When you give someone every thought of yours from dusk to dawn, when every breath labors for a smile to be preserved on someone’s lips, when you would gladly take the roof off every child in the world to shelter someone from a light drizzle, when you would like to admonish the sun for biting at the beloved’s skin….how can that just be love…four letters, a bitter injustice. My father has given me so much of himself I don’t think he could ever just be himself again…what with all his emotional faculties in my possession. His eyes stare blankly at me and for a minute, he looks right into my eyes. I try to make myself believe that he can see me. Then he throws his arm out towards me… (in my general direction so to speak). And once again I see him as a child throwing his hand out for his mother. I stretch forward and grasp the bony, long fingers, thrust my way. A trace of a smile dances on his dried lips. That’s the most his facial muscles can manage these days. He holds on to my hand and for all his frail appearance,I feel his strength streaming out of his palm, into my body. No papa, they couldn’t beat you down…and something else rushes into my body…pride. I sit down beside him. At his feet. I take his hand to my lips and kiss them gently for fear that I might wither them. He places his free hand, with much effort, on my head and then, he sighs. The sigh of a man who after long, treacherous journeys has found El Dorado. We sit that way father and daughter. Joint by the hands and by half a lifetime of memories together. I lay my head down on his knees…just like I did when I was a young girl and had every day his presence living in the home he had built now. Just like it is now, isn’t it papa? Now you live in a home I have built. Only roles have reversed haven’t they? ‘No’…… I answer the question myself. I can never give him what he gave me. He is my father…my parent…how can I even dream of being him? His fingers play with my hair. And lying there by his side his arms holding me, however frail the hold may be….I feet blessed. I close my eyes and allow my mind to travel…. That is when I awaken, to find the remnants of my dreams in my head, swirling about in a misty whirl. I lie in bed still, much awake, but lost in the thoughts that plague me. The thought that the arms that now hold me tight and rest my fears, will some day, be weak and limp, fill me with a sadness unlike any other. It is but inevitable but that is a fact that I run away from. Memories flood my mind. I lose myself in thoughts of the man I love most…………I hear laughter and see us playing ‘house’. My little sister, barely old enough to walk, sits at the porch watching us… enchanted. We laugh….papa has to really squeeze to fit in the play house. Gigantic as the house is for us, man as big as papa, would surely have to curl into a ball to fit, and it sure was fun to watch him try. Papa always seemed such a big man…he was always tall but had a small slender frame of a dancer or an ice skater, which he probably could have been, had he known the first thing about grace. But my father WAS big. He was big in the heart. No one ever heard him say a cruel word to any man, woman or child. When a scolding was well deserved and necessary, it would be administered with much regret. He was a big man, because of the way he loved any living thing that came his way…..and loved with such abandon, that you’d swear that his life had held no disappointments. That, was far from the truth…about as far, as the new galaxy they have just discovered (that I never remember the name of). That is what made my father big. He had been cheated, but he would not give up on trusting, he had been hurt, but would not give up on caring, he had been disappointed, but would not give up on hoping, he had been miserable, but would not give up on happiness, he had lived a thousand deaths, and still would not give up his zest for life. He was full of vitality and some well chosen wisecracks, in his sickest of days. At times I would think, that perhaps it was a daughter’s adoration for her father that made me feel this way. Now much later, illusions have lost their charm, and dreams have either been realised or withered to nothings….even now I see him the same. The most beautiful man, I have had the honor of knowing. That I am the offspring of such a man is only a gift that I have been granted, perhaps for some greatly selfless deed performed in a previous lifetime (for, I certainly have not done any in this one).I think of bedtime as a child. My tired father, would lie beside me, waiting for slumber to claim my thoughts and attention (and that would take very long indeed). Just to know he is near, I’d hold on to a lock of his hair and twist it round and round my fingers and close my eyes. I’d ask silly questions and he would answer, no matter how exhausted he was. His voice would fill my ears those quiet nights. I’ve often associated that voice with god…perhaps for the comfort I found in it. One night I asked him, ‘if I want something will I have it?’. He said ‘if u ask for the moon, I will look up at it and know that it is impossible to get it….but I still would go there and give it my best shot’. I smiled and fell off to sleep, in less than a minute. It was not a dialogue meant to be presented dramatically, with a charming flourish. It was a commitment. Till date, there is not a doubt in my mind, that had I, in reality made a wish of that magnitude, he would have turned the world upside down to grant it. Every whim and fancy was entertained, when it was mine. Yes, indeed I was a spoilt favorite.I was faultless and perfect, dare anyone suggest otherwise. He saw no evil in me and for him, I wanted to be perfect (that I could never be is quite a different thing). In retrospect, I doubt if he ever really knew me. He did not care to discover either, he loved me with all he had and there was nothing more to it, than that. Perhaps the only suffering his love caused was born of the fact, that he would not stand my love being bestowed upon anyone else, but him. There were many, who bore the brunt as with my grandma, who in trying to spend the last days of her life with her first grandchild, got told off for not unedrstanding that a child’s place is with it’s parents. In due course of time, as my acquaintances grew in number, so did his impatience with them. To be honest, I loved every minute of it.In later teenage years, he like every other parent, had to deal with the inevitable accessories of adolescence. I’d say, he did a marvelous job at it. There were rifts and disagreements. I’d be out late and he would call and holler on the telephone. Then, I would be home and a second after my face appeared at the door, all anger would be forgotten and joy would light up his face and heart. His precious baggage was home, and all was well with the world. I never did understand how he managed to be like this… I never will figure it out….as I see it, I don’t have to. I just need to cherish him each moment that he is by my side. I will love him forever…and my children will hear stories of him…ever so slightly exaggerated. Perhaps they will tell their children about their great-grandfather….perhaps. But after that….somewhere along the road, the memories will be washed away by the waves of time. And then the greatness of this one man, will truly be lost… tragic as it may be, it is how life is and shall always be. I won’t be alive then, I would not wish to be. As long as I live, I shall carry this man in my heart, for he got there before anyone else. I will watch him and cherish the peace, that the looking bestows upon me. Inevitably, one day he will leave me and move to the heavenly abode (I have no doubt that he will go there)…. I will not hold him back, for then he shall truly be free and as long as I live, I will celebrate his existence through every breath I take, until I too, like all else, will return to dust…