It has been close to three months, My father passed away due to covid.
He kept waiting for me, didn't complain. He left me and everyone, just silently as if nothing mattered to him.
His death reflects on me the meaningless of everything we do and everything we say, everything we earn and everything we learn. In the end nothing matters.
I was and will be an incompetent son. He loved me, He loved all his children.
He used to get ill frequently but always stood on his feet. Even till his last day he ate himself and went to toilet himself. It makes me proud of him and it also breaks me from inside to realize.
I don't believe in afterlife but I do believe in another life and I know my father has already born with a new body, may be in some other country, some other ethnicity, some other religion. He must have brought happiness to the people around him. He will. He is one hell of a caretaker.
It's easy for me to get sad for myself and selfish too. But I know you left because you knew I will take care of what or who you left behind till I leave. I have anxiety, I have jitters but I have confidence I will not fail you father.
We both had bitter days and just seeing how you lost your bitterness taught me to let me lose mine. You thought me an able son. I gave you the moments you could be proud of. Perhaps this is all the solace I have.
Most people thinks their father is a hero and when I think about my father I feel they are right. Fathers are the nurses and the doctors and the teachers and the guides, they are the critics and the admirers.
You had one life which seems monumental to me, not in its size but in its depth. Where you finished from where you started takes generations perhaps for most. Born as an eldest son in a family with 7 son and 2 daughters. You were the prime target of grandfather. You bore all the fatherly cruelty, still managed to get into studies.
You loved football. You secured a government job with all your vigor and also helped your father in his business. You got married to my mother. You had three daughters before having me in a society which sees daughter as liabilities and son as an asset. two of your daughters were intellectually challenged. You took everything in your stride and never broke. NEVER.
How will handle things makes my spine shiver, your spine was of steel perhaps or you just hid it so that we blossom without worrying. You knew education is they key and being part of the bigger family my education will be hampered specially due to my disabled sisters.
You kept me aside from everything, even to yourself so that I could concentrate on my studies. You tried to get me into the best of schools. To the best of coaching. You had an unflinching trust in my capabilities.
After your death only I can realize that your treating me harsh on occasions were perhaps your only way to vent your frustration in the process of handling the life you envisioned for me. And all I can say is why didn't I helped you more. Why I was so selfish and still am.
You wanted me to succeed in life and each time I failed you never let your hope vanish. What you saw me made you believe that I will be the son you want.
You built a new house for us and within months one of your daughter died. It was painful to mother but then we never checked how disheartening it was for you. You just said once "her face remains in front of my eyes."
You fought for us from greedy brothers, you took care of everything and asked me to concentrate on studies. I couldn't.
You sent me to college. I was lazy, always doing the bare minimum. Perhaps you believed that my bare minimum is close enough and I will realize my potential sooner or later.
I needed money and I called you from college and you were ill. You were suffering and your voice on phone scared me for the first time. I felt that I will lose you. It was 13 years ago and I got the first hint that one day I have to live without you.
I completed the college in my bare minimum style and got a private job within couple of months. That was for you the perhaps the proudest moment which I ever could provide.
You no more had to shy away from people asking "what your son is doing nowadays?".
You got your eldest sister married, you retired next year. You retired a content and happy man. Your son was in job, your daughter married, you liable to get pension and then with your savings.
And then once I decided to stay more time with you only to realize we two are different persons and you wanted me to be a better person and I never seeing any point in it.
We didn't talk for more than 6 months de to fallout. And hen when i was about to go foreign for work related stuff you met me. you were changed man, standing behind mother, slyly smiling. I remember you said something and I rebuked you and you smiled. In that smiled I saw a father drinking humiliation just to be with his son.
That was the beginning of you being a caring father so unbecoming of you. You wanted me to get married. I fell for a girl briefly and it didn't work out simply because no one will bear my attitude as my father and mother did. But I agreed to your way of marriage.
I saw tension and frustration in you when I rejected few suitable girls because you didn't see much wrong with them. Then I married a girl which you chose and I liked, everyone was happy.
Your health kept going downwards but every time you kept fighting back, you kept taking care of stuff. I got married and you were more humbled.
You got a heart surgery and I was nervous. My mother was worried and you recovered smiling.
You braved everything just for making my life better and it hurts me more.
And before I could provide you with something to cherish, you got infected with covid. Things kept getting bad to worse and I was helpless. I couldn't even visit you. And on my birthday you decided to leave this world.
To me it seems you fought to this disease and made it to my birthday and then you passed away perhaps hinting me that you leave everything to me, for me.
It has been close to three month and it seems like yesterday when you use to talk to me about money and property. You asked me how much I make and when I told you, you got silent. You didn't react maybe because I might take it otherwise.
Father I love you for what a great human being you were. I know you will continue to spread positivity in any part of universe, in any form you are.
I hope to meet you father again. Life is temporary but the ask and the love will always be there.
