The Gentleman, My Father

I was four, stepping into kindergarten, giant tears streaming down my cheeks, letting fluid escape my nostrils. My mother knelt at the gate, wiping my face with a squared floral handkerchief pinned mirroring an isosceles triangle. I would look into her eyes and plead, “Do not abandon me.” She would return it with a sigh entangled in warmth and say, “You’ll love it in there.” I would plead, looking at my father with the intention that at least one of them would hand out their arm to me, and the horror would meet its fate.

My father walked me to my class at war with his tears. And every day since then, I may have turned 23, but for him, I am still a four-year-old. I would cry every day, fully aware of abandonment at the gates, and the tears always found the edges of the handkerchiefs. In hindsight, what I termed as abandonment was a future my parents were building for me. Blissfully unaware, I would unapologetically wail, and while sometimes my mother’s temperament would be up to the test, Father would wail with me.

Years passed, but my tears did not stop rolling, and neither did my father’s. Each moment of separation sang the ballads of earth-shattering pain. Father is an intelligent man; he makes rockets, I recited. I must make him proud; I would etch it in the canvas of my conscience. With time, the canvas lay dusty, awaiting my father’s signature, His approval.

Father would work night shifts, and as the clock turned 19:00, I would prepare the water tanks and unleash them as he left. Mother wondered how she birthed a whale that constantly streamed a puddle of water at any given time and occasion. Dismissing her aquatic concerns, I would wear the shirt that smelled like Father’s and stand by the window-side waiting for his return.

A packet of cookies would be sitting at the counter announcing Father’s arrival, and joy would gush into my veins. My gaze would immediately issue a search operation, and I would find him ironing my school uniform. The dark lines under his eyes diminished for a moment when he would look up at me. He would go back to ironing the creases.

Over the years, I outgrew his clothes and stopped waiting by the window. Father, however, stood by the changes, occasionally disapproving of my behaviour. The distance seemed to seep in; eyes that waited for Father once now did not. Every time we spoke, accusations would find home. The eyes that once carried love in them now only expressed disdain.

Moving away held the ticket to avoiding battles with the man whose approval meant a life goal. I gladly accepted the escape. At the airport gate, Mother said, “I hope you find what you seek.”

I looked at Father, his demeanour unbothered; his eyes pleaded, “Don’t abandon me.” I saw her in him, the four-year-old kindergarten me. Once in a while, I gathered the courage to dial him. Father would silently wail, and I would wail with him.

Months passed, and life unravelled in another country, another city. I slept each night with the quilt made of heartache. One sombre evening, I asked Mother, “How is Father?” She quipped, “He has been sitting with a platter of pineapples.”

“Pineapples?” I questioned.

“You love them,” she reminded me.

Father cannot wear my clothes; he holds them with gentleness and stands by the window-side waiting for my return.

The weight of that image floods through the barriers of disconnect between us. “Did you find what you were seeking?” my conscience interrogates.

Thank you for reading ❤