THIS week marked the 36th year since their father left us.
He left me a houseful of very young and adorable daughters with the world on their side. In the face of adversity, we are not permitted to ask “why me?” You can ask but you won’t get an answer.
Through the years, I’ve learned the hard way why some poems don’t rhyme, why some stories don’t even have a clear beginning, middle and end. That life is a delicious ambiguity of not knowing, having to change; just taking the moment and making the most of it without knowing what is going to happen next…in gratitude to destiny.
The past years came and went with hair raising fears and loneliness, joy and pride that tumbled in every widow’s brain. As an imaginer by trade, and a weaver of tales, I’ve tried to create a vision of life for them in my mind.
I thought of four lawyers, four doctors, four owners of beauty parlors and boutiques, four writers and God forbid, four spinsters! You see, your children are either the center of your life or not. The rest is commentary.
Having helped in making them mine, I remember their arrivals that still produced grave guilt in one’s motherhood because we have ached for sons instead. I have hatched them, till they’ve flown. I watched them grow from babies whose moves toward independence were baby steps excruciatingly oh so slow. They were little children who became young adults — from diapers to cap and gown for that law degree for Milkah, the eldest who taught everyone kindness modeled respect and sereneness, and always looked rich and polished; through scrapes and scratches, indomitable they hurdled: one with a mass communications degree, another an economics degree. Still, my fondest hopes were a pool of reporters that would outscoop me, abundantly an improvement on the mother. Raisha stumbles out of the door like one of the coloratura sopranos singing Neapolitan love songs that arise upbeat, positive, polite and intrepid.
Years back, they were little women that I caught falling into the fierce tentacles of first love. 10-year-olds’ hearts were breaking, sending convulsion that shook the whole house, weeping like Victorian heroines in immeasurable anguish, despair and desolation. I remember walking to the front door, instead of their father long gone, to shake the hands of their first dates…young men crippled with shyness.
Soon, I was walking them down into the wedding altar, only to step aside while out-sobbing the Niagara Falls.
Like a gypsy reads tea leaves, I saw them merge into an unmanageable ceaseless demand, always banging on the bathroom. When I was inside, bouncing on my bed when I was sleeping, there was Natasha, the Christmas baby, carrying on her father’s legacy of being pleasant, thoughtful and generous. Veruschka, the source of my joy and numerous excesses, always interrupting when I phoned in my stories. They could occupy themselves to time’s end with friends, computers, malls, plays and concerts, husbands and work.
And just when I’m feeling grateful with some peace that indeed there is mysterious depth in my fatherless daughters that I need to fathom, someone erupts with MOTHERHOOD!!!
Their memoirs of their good father, them perched on his lap; and a kiss that cures broken legs, bruised egos, strength on the dentist’s chair, and one who can veto their mother’s disciplinary impositions.
He had that uncanny way of saying just the right word and to whom. His expectations, hope and commitment to us were high. He gave us love, taught us reason and intelligence, made us feel certain we will succeed in any family endeavor, having instilled in us qualities that are timeless, along with brains and courage.
Along with dignity, strength, courage, dedication, wisdom and compassion, our marriage survival kit was simply a balanced life. It was genuine love, adaptability, flexibility, kindness and the imagination to read minds and to anticipate each other’s needs, yet I should have known growing old with him was too much to ask.
On Father’s Day, it was a day of appreciation, respect and memories.
I can’t think of any other daughters on God’s green earth who deserve it more than those who had to give a father back.
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected].
