It's been fourteen years since my dad died. Fourteen whole years. Feels like a lifetime away. I guess it really is a lifetime away. Last time I saw him, it was the summer vacation right before prep school, I was 10 going on 11. Now I'm approaching my 25th year. He missed my adolescence, he missed how my personality shaped and how my tastes got to be what they are. He missed my first relationship and my first heartbreak. He missed how I've come to doubt myself and how I've come to trust it. I wonder if he would have helped me through college, would he have done the same thing with me as he did with my cousins; point out skew lines in their drawings? Would he have convinced me to take architecture or civil engineering instead of computer? I think he might. Funny how before he died, he'd asked me if I wanted to go to an Arabic music concert at the opera and I told him nooooo, that would be so boring and now I actually like and enjoy it. I think with my acquired taste for coffee (any taste in coffee is an acquired taste in coffee, no one gets coffee bottles instead of milk bottles as babies), we'd probably sneak off to grab a couple of coffee shots; him an espresso and me a cappuccino. I wonder how he would have reacted when all my close friends were boys? Would he meet them? Would he trust me?
I have this idea that I would have been quite the spoiled brat had he lived on, he always got me anything I wanted... Not a good way to bring up a strong independent girl.
Still I miss him. I imagine what he would do if he were here. Would he forgive my mistakes? Would he give me sound advice? Would he be angry in situations and sad in others? Would my relationship with my family be different? I try to imagine but it's all in my head. My mom tells me he would have been angry for so and so. She's known him more, she knows him better, and maybe she's right in the end. But I've got him in my heart and I know him in my heart, and it is him in my heart that I try to be true to. He is my conscience and my friend when I seem to run out of both. He keeps me company and, as long as I am listening, he keeps me true to myself and others. As much as my mom was the one who really raised me, my dad was the one who planted so many seeds that she helped grow. Come to think of it, I don't think I would have been a spoiled brat had he been alive, but I would definitely have been different. His death was for the best I'm sure, one way or another, and we will never know how or why. But he's not really dead as long as he is in my heart, guiding me.
Please take a moment to read Al-Fateha for him.
your writings is very impressive Dina,you had me almost cry ! I always remember him,he left a good memories with each and every one who knew him,he was a good man,God rest his sole and all the Muslims-Amen.
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