Thankless……

Have you ever notice how we want to escape from every phase of life? As a child you want to become a teenager, as a teenager you want to become an adult ….. Become self-sufficient, you want to leave home, you want to be independent, you want to start you own new life! Parents start seeming annoying, their care seems like taunts, and you can’t stand their concern for even one fraction of a second! And yes I know you also would’ve read a million trillion articles about how parents sacrifice so much for us and how thankless we kids are in return.

But here I am in a weird forked path in my life, in the next 60 days I leave my only support system….and go away…. In the next 60 days I get married to a man who I think I know. But in return I have to leave behind someone who halted her own breath for my first breath; I leave behind someone who has been not a single mother but a double mother! Someone who I have tortured to tears, and loved to laughter, someone I cannot imagine living a single day without, my best enemy, my worst friend (she can’t take sarcasm) …. I was really little when our family of three became a family of two, but I was twenty when I actually realized that we were a family of two, because all these years she never made me feel for even a fraction of second that I was missing out on something in life. And the immature person that I was never understood that it was actually she who missed out on her entire life. For me she lived on, for me she smiled, for me she put up a bold front, for me she carried on her life…… but never lived it. Now for the past 11 years she lived like the way I wanted her to live, she smiled to hide her sorrows only so that I wouldn’t see her pain.

For someone who has made so many sacrifices for me….. How can I just turn my back and move ahead in life? How do I? Every night is the same question, how do I leave someone alone who stayed alone her entire life so that I am not alone. How do I? How do I live a life without someone I haven’t lived a second without. No, no one can love me more than she does and no one can love her more than I do. It goes without saying that no one can ever make as many sacrifices as she has for me…. No one, what I cannot answer is a question that I have raised myself; again being the selfish daughter that I am the question is not “how will she live without me” the question is “how will I live without her”?  I cannot even come up with an imaginative answer let alone a realistic answer.

Do I regret my decision? Yes, I shouldn’t have made this decision so soon in life…. What do I do? The day I saw my father lying there lifeless I clung onto my mother’s dupatta and decided never to let go , today when I stand on this forked path I don’t want to let go of that dupatta…. I don’t want to let go of her fragrance (which makes me sneeze  :p) I don’t want to miss her , I want to be with her , I want her next to me… from my first breath to my last.

When will the tunnel end?

In his book, Life without Father, David Popenoe, wrote: “Growing up without a father may be a root cause of many social ills—from crime to academic failure.”  How true! 

When I think of my father, words like “strong, handsome, religious, available, patient, protective, wise, respected, tender-hearted, safe, responsible, and loving” come to mind. And then when I imagine my life without my father each of these little elements disappears, we speak of living in the 21st century, but the advantages we would take of women without a man to support her is unreal. It is said that from birth, children who have an involved father are more likely to be emotionally secure, be confident to explore their surroundings, and, as they grow older, have better social connections, if only the world actually understood this.

No I am not using the absence of a light house to be the reason for my blindness , but yes the lack of light definitely can most certainly be the reason for anyone to go astray.... true? I kept my eyes wide open , I kept my senses alert , I made every conscious effort to keep my dignity intact , but yet I managed to stumble onto so many pit holes filled with muck .....Pit holes I would've avoided if there was light in my life.

I got stuck in quick sand , fell on my face , hurt my ego , my self-esteem just because I was blinded .... Blinded and determined to reach the end of the tunnel and see light.... even if I saw a ray of light I would start walking again only to fall on my face again and again and again. Every onlooker misjudging my motives , every person judging my morals but none made an effort to understand that I was not making the wrong choices or I was not morally weak or neither was I lost, I was just looking for my light house ..... I was just looking for my father..... Some never understood and the others? The others took advantage..... Life was never normal, as an 11 year old I remember my childhood being burnt in front of my own eyes, but who understood me? Only the person who was being burnt.

 A little girl needs to see herself reflected in the love she sees for herself in her father's eyes.  This is how she develops self-confidence and self-esteem, a healthy familiarity with what a positive expression of love feels like, and an appreciation for her own looks and her own body. 

Likewise, having a father present is how she develops immeasurable skills that will help her stand up, face the world. This might not be true for all..... But for someone like me who still looks for her father in every atom of the world, I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.