'Happy' Father's Day
Today is Father's day in the UK. 'Happy' Father's Day!
There are fathers with long faces, sad fathers, angry fathers, disgruntled fathers, upset fathers, fathers to whom their kids can never measure up to, dictatorial fathers - yet I am lucky, my father was a truly 'Happy' person, a content happy person with a lot of belief in his kids and the goodness of humanity in general. (It was always the situation not the person, when things went wrong.) A father with whom we disagreed, had arguments, yet at the end of the day, there were never scars or regrets, the underlying bond of love ran too deep for that, though we never said 'I love you, Appa'. Until his last few years, when Appa became fragile in his health, we had never hugged Appa or even held his hands!
A father who was not really a hands-on parent, sometimes we held this against him, Appa you did not scoure educational opportunities like other fathers, you did not put us in classes, you did not defend us against other's criticisms, you did not sit with us during exams coaching us, you do not promote us and so on. Yet I can only wonder at his strength and belief in us - it is natural as a parent to set things right for your kids, but the strength to hold back and let kids make their own mistakes, their own choices and face the consequences - encouraging self-sufficiency rather than life long dependency on the parent.
Never advising, never making choices for us, never comparing us to any scale or any person, never judging us by our material success! Never promoting us or critcizing us or defending us in public! A parent not threatened by other children's success but encouraging, believing there is more than enough for everyone and celebrating(Besh, besh - his words accompanied by a clap). A parent who encouraged participation and problem solving rather than prizes and apathy and selfishness! A parent who was there silently nurturing us, never making a big deal of anything or blowing his own horn of self-importance!
A parent with principles and integrity and Guru Bhakthi, who lived true to his word and showed us how to live rather than talk and advise.
It is only in the last few years, as I became a parent, I see how my Appa encouraged self-sufficiency and resilience, and his encouragement to seek my own answers rather than 'his' answers, how much he believed in my own abilities! And trusting me implicitly to live my life, one that I created myself rather than his! I am a lucky person, indeed!
Happy Father's Day, Appa, wherever you are now. I know you are also with us in that very precious space in our hearts, a void that will never go away.