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| My Father and The Caspian (Photo by: Nadia) |
When dad was a kid, he
woke up one cold snowy day to find the pantry empty and his mother in tears.
Dad was still a kid but the man he was, he took the hunting rifle and set off.
Snow filled up his galoshes and his toes turned numb. He went on. His fingers
turned blue and the rifle grew heavier. But he went on, through the marshes, through
the empty frozen rice fields. He went on until he heard the Caspian Sea roaring
in a distance. Wild ducks fed in wetlands by the Caspian, dad knew. He shot a
single shot that day. The duck had fallen down into the wetland and dad had
gone to fetch it. Making his way back through the wetland, his saw the fish.
The Caspian had brought it over and it was swimming there entangled in the
green.
When dad was a kid, he
came home one cold snowy day with a wild duck and the gift of the Caspian. He
was already a man.
*****
Later on, I asked myself
how long the cancer had been growing in his lungs. His feet had become swollen
and painful and the doctors would swap one blood pressure pill with another.
One even said it was arthritis and prescribed another pill. Later on, I
wondered if the cancer was there when I combed his hair and kissed his cheeks;
was it there when I baked Anna Olson’s shortbread for the first time and Dad tried
and said I should only marry a man who appreciates me and my cooking the same way he
does. Was it there when he came back each day finding me hunched over the
laptop trying to find something, anything to take me away from him? Was it
there when he threw his hands in the air and danced on the stairs when Mum told
him. “Yes, our Ida is going away.” When I hugged him goodbye, was it here? When
he started crying, was it there? On Yalda night, on Christmas night, was it
there? Had it grown beyond control, beyond care? Had it already won?
In my mind he is still there, hunched over. His voice has turned into a hush. I can still see him in the corner of the screen and I ask my mum to comb his hair and kiss his cheeks.
*****
He is my cheeks and he is my shoulder blades. He is my sarcasm and he is my
hotheadedness. He is my sudden feats of anger and my descent into melancholy.
He is my eagerness to read and my passion to write. He is my quickness to love and my readiness to forgive.
He is my ugliness. He is
my beauty. He was my beginning and he will be my end.
