My father's death came as an absolute shock to me; his unexpected death "knocked me for a loop" as they say. I think of daddy almost every day and all through the day as memories that I thought were long forgotten come to life again. It happened again as I set down to write this down. I thought that I would write about the time when I used to wake him up and ask him to rock my son, his beloved grandchild to sleep, while I completed my quota of the much-needed beauty sleep; or write about those days when he was our Mummy too as Ma had come over to Dhaka to visit my granny; or of the time when he had his first stroke, also the first time that I realized my daddy was also human and could feel pain and suffering; or the time when my son was born and daddy became self-appointed nanny – not only for the baby but also for me :-D….too many memories…some just too painful to even pen down here….
After daddy passed away, there were times when I was overcome with sorrow and regret, I still am. But I have to take care of the living now, my son and my mother and so I go on.
I can’t say the usual stuff that you hear people often say as to what a great man so and so was in eulogies and such. My father was not a great man, but he was a good man, a complex man and a flawed man. He was very generous, was always there for my mom, sister and myself and when he was healthy he lived his life fully. He loved my mother, my sister and me as much as he knew how. He was also at times hot headed, impatient, and undisciplined.
He always tried to be the best dad possible. He tried to fulfill each and every wish of his family and often unreasonable demands put forth by yours truly. He loved cooking and would spend most of his time at home cooking up delicious and scrumptious treats for us. For him, we were everything – he would never think twice before sacrificing his own desires, wishes and wants to fulfill some selfish need of his kids (especially me, cos my younger sis has always been the mature and reasonable one in the family)! He loved helping out strangers, and was often naive to take people’s words at their face value.
The last ten years were not good ones for my Dad. He suffered from multiple ischemic strokes, resulting in severe health complications in the form of diabetes mellitus and hypertension, both of which were aggravated due to his allergy to doctors and medical institutions – and he was always uncomfortable :-( He didn't keep his body in great shape and it started to fail him. He went from ayurvedic to homeopathy to herbal therapy to god knows what else - in the hope of finding some miracle cure to recapture his youth, strength and vigor and when this did not happen, he fought depression. In the end he was not even able to eat properly and had to suffer the further indignity of suffering from incontinence. We thought we still had years to go and in the end we found that we had only hours.
I realize now, long after his death, that my daddy was an amazing man. They say that most children go through a stage of feeling superior to their parents, a condition to which Mark Twain once quipped, “When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in only 7 years.” My father’s expansive talents never afforded me such illusions. I knew that I never measured up to him.
As a child growing up, I held two immutable facts about my father:
1) He was the strongest man alive.
2) He contained a genetic repository of all the world’s knowledge and wisdom.
While my own strength has grown, and my knowledge expanded, my respect and amazement for my father’s wisdom remains unchanged. I still look inside myself and wonder do I share his gifts of generosity, farsightedness, giving without holding back and affecting change in a world today much different than my daddy’s era? Does my son ever think of me as I did of daddy – an individual of courage and love?
My father wasn’t afraid to be himself and taught me how to be independent. He let me lead when I felt strong, and forged ahead when I was too scared. He taught me how to ride a bike, make an omelet, prepare scrumptious pasta and plant a garden. He taught me to stick to my beliefs and see them through.
My father unconditionally put his family first and modeled unceasing selflessness.
THAT was my father, my Daddy … ♥
Today since morning I have been thinking of this soliloquy to Hamlet:
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:
Daddy, I hope you are sleeping and no longer in pain or suffering and if you do dream I hope your dreams are of a daughter who misses you dearly each day and always tried to give you her unconditional love, though she often failed. I love you Daddy and I am sorry that I couldn’t do much to ease your pains and your sufferings or even tell you properly how much I loved you.
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