I Wannabe a Father – Family Short Story
Photo credit: rachjose from morguefile.com
My life’s journey so far has prepared me as an inwardly awake person.
Last year I lost my father to sudden silent cardiac arrest. I responsibly faced the liquid moment and handled the never ending people’s query. Each time I met a new person the same question was popped to me,
“I am sorry about your father. What happened to him?”
The question which used to choke my trachea instantly. I do not know how I mustered all that nerve and faced the unbearable masked faces of acquaintances and non-acquaintances.
However, all days are not alike. Each day is a new chapter. So with each passing day my life’s leaf unfurled. Gradually my valor started dripping. Overwork can not make one weak unless and until he goes weak in his mind. This happened to me. I was mentally overworked. Pain of losing my father was shrinking my medulla.
I lost taste in my work, in outings, in people and moreover in life. I was depressed. The burden of treating myself as the cause of my father’s death as I couldn’t rush him to the medical aid in his last time was deeply severing me.
I even forgot that I am his part and he is alive in me.
One day as I drove to my work a young boy nearly missed a close hit from me. I bellowed,
“How can you be so careless? Ever thought the distress your family would have suffered due to your likely sudden demise? Why are you running in the middle of the road?”
“Sorry Sir. Actually…I spotted something…on the road….that passing car…just happened to drop….out of pity….for me or may be for some other reason…. But now it belongs to me.”
“What is it?”
“Chocolate.” Child responded innocently in quavering voice and fluttering back his tears.
As the boy answered, for the first time I paid close attention to him. He was a young skinny child with extraordinarily adorable face and was covered in tattered scanty draping.
Sensing my unsympathetic conduct, I offered him a burger at an outlet nearby. He gladly agreed. He worked there as a sweeper and dish washer.
As he munched it in small loving bites, I tried to converse with him.
“Next time do not do this ever again. You are so young. You are not even aware about pain you endure when you lose your father… or your son or some one near and dear one.”
“At least you once had your father and now you have pain the symbol of your ceaseless attachment to him. I have no one. No father, no mother, no family.”
Boy uttered coldly. But it hit me fiercely. He was right.
Instead of work I headed towards graveyard.
I cleaned the tombstone with my hands and adored it with fresh petals I bought on my way. It relieved me a bit.
I silently sat near my father’s resting place. I recalled the moments I lived with him. Everything is connected I thought. Life and death are not in our hands but what we do with it is in our very own hands. It was a moment of enlightenment. At dusk I got up on my feet. I actually stood for the first time since he left.
I wiped the cry from my face and enthusiastically told my father, “Daddy I wannabe a father, a remarkable father, like you. Not just to one but to too many. That way I will always keep you alive till I am dead.” I bid him adieu.
I renamed by home “Father’s love.”
Next day I went to the same eatery and brought the little boy home.
From that day till now I took hold of eleven tender fingers and brought them in to “father’s love.”
Now I live here contentedly with my mother and these young rays which illuminate every corner of my home with father’s love.
__END__
