Father's Day

I didn't get a chance to call my Dad on Father's day.  Or more honestly, I forgot.

Beth and I were traveling back from LA that day and after we got back, I just forgot to phone him.  And then Monday came and I got busy with the work week.  By the end of the week, I just felt like a schmuck and let it go entirely.

I got to see him a couple weeks later when I went to visit my ailing grandmother (on my Mom's side).  My grandmother has been fighting a form of bone cancer the past couple of years and has been going through a hard stretch recently.  She is 81.   She is staying with and being taken care of by my aunt (my Mom's only sister) right now, splitting time between the two daughters since she got sick. 

My aunt made a lavish Sri Lankan rice 'n' curry lunch for us, with a myriad of dishes.  My father was there with my grandmother -the mother of his ex-wife of 25 years.  As we ate, I heard from my grandmother and aunt how my Dad would come visit my grandmother regularly, bringing her fresh mangoes, other Sri Lankan fruits, and mild curries.  He would sit with her and talk as she ate (if she had an appetite that day), keep her company for hours.  This as you can guess also provided some relief for my aunt.

When I was growing up, I was very close with my Dad.  After my parents split up when I was 8, I would do the weekend Dad thing with him.  I remember watching Peter Sellers' movies on TV with him on Sunday afternoons  (a shared love) as he sat preparing pomegranate berries for me.  This picking of the tiny seeded berries from the husk was a painstaking task and he would do this delicately for several minutes, providing me in the end with a bowl of pristine, delicious pomegranate berries.  He would only take a few for himself, and only when I offered it to him multiple times.  He was the same when he cooked curries for me or took me out to a favorite restaurant, he would always wait until I ate.
 
As I grew into my teens and my awareness developed around the dysfunction in my family, things changed.  I  started to see my Dad as a very uncommunicative person, unable to express his emotions.  I also found myself wishing he was more accomplished, more successful like my friends' fathers.  All he seemed to want to do was work as little as possible and play golf the rest of the time.  I remember arguing with him that he always saw things too simply, that things were more complicated than he assumed.

I was unaware then that my attitudes were very typical of assimilation anxiety felt by most first-generation Asian immigrants; straddling two very different cultures while growing into adulthood.

By the time I finished high school and left for college, I had withdrawn much from both my parents but felt especially distant from my Dad.  We seemed like we were from different planets by that time.

Through most of my twenties, as I gained my own footing in the practical world, I began to worry about my father.  He had entered his 60's, had been smoking since he was 15, had not saved any money for retirement, and had lots of debt.  This anxiety began to consume me and only manifested itself in angry outbursts with my Dad whenever I felt he was being irresponsible.  I don't remember any warm memories of us during my twenties, our spare phone conversations never ended with a "I love you" like they did when I was a kid.

About 5 years ago, I sat.  I sat and dedicated myself to the practice of meditation.  During one of my early sittings, the angry feelings around my father came up.  And as I grew accustomed to discovering in those sittings, inevitably those angry feelings melted away to reveal the fear and concern I had for him, sitting alongside the feelings of a hurt and lonely little boy. 

When my father first came to visit me in SF about 4 years ago, I was resigned to tell him all of this.  He was visiting for over a week but as each day passed, I had not told him.  I only found myself growing tense and angry, again being sharp with him at certain moments -and then angry and disappointed with myself for being so with him.   On the last day, just hours before his flight, I called him into the living room.  Feeling like my heart would burst out of my chest, I began to talk with him.

I told him how much I loved him, how I always had.  I told him that I was worried about his health and that I wanted him to take better care of himself.  I told him that I wanted him to consider moving out West so I could be close with him.  I found myself saying this and more, and some of these things surprisingly, as tears flowed from my eyes and I began to cry deeply, the dam of emotion breaking open.

As I looked up after gathering myself, I saw my father sitting silently, his hand rising to wipe some tears away.  It was the first and only time I've ever seen my father cry.

After that day, the tone of our relationship changed.  We talked on the phone regularly, and the conversations always ended with a warm "I love you."  He quit smoking and now watches his diet.  I also learned that much prior to that, he had begun to pay off his debt and save some money for retirement.  But all these things seemed smaller in my mind compared to the bond that had been reforged, I did not worry nearly as much.

I no longer saw my Dad as someone who could not express love.  I realized that every time he plucked a sweet pomegranate berry from that difficult, coarse husk, he was telling me loved me.  I realized the tenderness this man carried within him along with the pain and difficulty he also endured being one of 13 children growing up in a village in Sri Lanka many decades ago.

So when I heard my aunt and grandmother talk about how he brought so much fruit and food that it would sometimes go to waste, I just smiled.  How can an abundance of love ever be of waste, I thought to myself.  If only they could see what I saw.

My father is not simple-minded as I thought he was when I thought I had it all figured out.  He is simple, but not simple-minded.  As I've gotten older and achieved career and financial success, I don't know if I've actually gotten happier.  I seem to long for less work and more time to play records. It seems my Dad had already figured this out a long time ago.   He wants to live simply; just enough money to pay for his essentials and nothing more.  And he is happy.  How can you argue with that?

So when I found myself worrying that I had forgotten to call him on Father's day, I realized later that I worried in the same way I had in the past when I felt there was something being lost, something broken between us.   But there wasn't.  He was there as he always had been. 

I just needed to open up my eyes and see. 

Me & Dad