The Morning I Met My Father Again
It’s Saturday morning. The light feels softer and warmer, and the air smells like fried eggs and burnt toast. I rub my eyes and sit up, confused.
My room is different but familiar. Wait, this can’t be possible?
I fumble around on the bed for my phone, but there’s no phone. No charger, but just a cassette player on the brown window table and a stack of Smash Hits magazines.
What… year is this?
I rush to the window. No modern cars. Just our old Datsun parked on the pavement.
Our garden is full of carnations and roses, and the neighbor’s big dog is barking behind the gate.
This is the early ’90s.
My heart pounds.
How did I get back here?
How can this be?
Then I hear Mum’s voice, clear and chirpy. She’s talking to somebody downstairs. A deep but loud laugh follows, that laugh that was heavily contagious. So Familiar!
Daddy?
I freeze. How can this possibly be?
Daddy passed away in 2008.
The hospital, the heartbreak, the silence that followed. But… that laugh, I can’t be wrong!
I walk downstairs slowly in my shalwar and t-shirt, something I’ve not worn in years.
The house I’ve woken up in is our Kingsway home, where we spent some good times before daddy began to get ill off and on.
And there he is! Sitting on the sofa with Mum, drinking chai and eating his toast, looking so healthy and happy.
He turns and smiles! “Uth gaye ho, Sami beta?”
I’m nodding gently. My legs give way; I’m in absolute shock!
He pats the sofa beside him, gesturing to come sit down.
I go ahead and sit beside him, and I stare.
“Daddy, How are you here?” I whisper.
He lets out that cute laugh of his.
“Time’s funny sometimes. Maybe you needed me, so I came back. Just for a little while.”
Mum gets up slowly and disappears into the kitchen, letting us have some daddy and daughter time.
Tears welling, sting my eyes.
“I miss you, Daddy. Every day.”
“I know, sami beta,” he says gently.
“But I never really left. I’ve watched you grow older, watched how happy you are, and watched how strong you have become.
I’ve watched you hold back tears, I’ve watched you smile, and I’ve watched you over the choices that you made years after my death, and I’m proud of you. He’s a good man.
He’s good to the boys.”
I want to say so much to Daddy, but my words are stuck as he takes my hand.
“Listen to me,” he says gently. “You are not too much. You are not a burden. Stop trying to shrink yourself to make others comfortable. Speak up. Feel everything. And please… don’t ever settle for anything less.”
My tears fall freely now.
“I don’t know if I’m doing life right.”
“Oh, you are beta, and as I said, I’m proud of you.
“Daddy I wish I spoke up for you when you weren’t treated right by your own people. I wish I could have said things that I wouldn’t hesitate to say now.”
“I know, beta, but you were young.
“Daddy, after your death, so much changed.”
“Shhhh, I saw everything, bas chup ker jao.”
He laughs again and gives me a hug!
That hug I’ve missed for years.
“You’re doing more than right, beta.”
“But daddy I have made mistakes in the past and I’m not so proud about those”
“Sami beta I know, but I also see you’ve repented and have whole heartedly, we change as we get older beta and for the better.”
“Daddy Why did you come now?” I say with a voice trembling and tears flowing.
“Because the woman you have become needed to hear this. And the little girl here in front of me needed that hug.
He places a hand over my heart. “Whenever you feel lost, I’m here. Always.”
And just like that, I blink… And he’s gone.
But the warmth stays. In the room. In my chest.
In me.
Writer | Scribbler of Dramatic Verses | Zoophilist | Empath |In the midst of writing my very first Novel | Mens Skincare Coming Soon | Husband’s Right Hand
