a fathers wish
My daughter enters the room with her usual youthful exuberance. Freshly washed, her face is shiny and her eyes bare, without their usual makeup. Upon second glance I notice her eyes are rimmed with red, and dark purple shadows are beneath. The gleam in her eyes I first mistook for a mischevious plan reveals itself to be a layer of shimmering tears. When I catch her eye it is not joy or fun I see reflected, but a weary, haunted look. How long has this been there? Why haven’t I noticed before?
She moves across the room. Her pyjamas, many sizes too big, drag on the floor, and she tugs at the neckline where it hangs down, letting in the cold. I always thought her mother had bought pyjamas three sizes bigger than necessary, but now I see my daughter for the waif she is. We used to jest about her plumpness and ample hips, now I see no evidence of this. Where the neck of her pyjama top droops, I see bones across her chest where before only extra skin was visible. I wonder to myself when this happened, and how did I not see it until now?
What has my child been through that I do not know of? How much of her life have I missed out on? I rue myself for being too concerned with other things to ask. Bills must be paid, a job must be kept, but a problem shared is a problem halved. What could have happened that I never knew about? Are there dark secrets that long to be told, or deep dreams that yearn to push out? How I ache to call to her, ask her to tell me all that has happened, share that part of her that is hidden from me.
What I thought I knew about my daughter, is it façade, or is her life really that simple? Am I on the wrong track, or have I discovered an enigma, waiting to be unravelled?
The thing that concerns me most is the time I have lost. Once today is over, tomorrow begins. I cannot reclaim yesterday. This being that I created, I know almost nothing about. I wanted to be there the first time she cried, when she first spoke, and when she took her first steps. But was I there when she had her heart broken, when the lies were spread, when her darkest night pressed in?
What have I missed out on, in this precious life? I wish I could gain back those moments, forever lost, and be there for her, share those dark times. My beloved child told me about her triumphs, her success, and her joy, but the things she did not share helped more to form her.
These tears that fill my eyes are not for me, for my lost time, but for the daughter I wish I knew. If I could take away the burdens she carries, share her pain, and comfort her.
I wish…
6 Comments:
do you like it though?
meh.. i dont care if you like it, lol.. i dont want to fish =)
I wrote it just before... its ficticious... i took a bit of fact and mixed it up with poetic licence.
i wrote it after going into my parents room, and being told by my mother that i looked like a witch with the makeup i had on, lol ha ha *grin*
And i wondered, for a moment, what it would be like if i, just for once, let my guard down and told my parents some of what happens in my life.
So there are bits of it that are true, and bits that are way made up. but sometimes i wonder if my parents ever catch a glimpse of that other side?
yeh, good short story there! :)
i feel that i cant really share everything with my parents because i dont like talking about myself that much, and I would feel embarrassed to anyway.
But at the same time i can see myself in the future, wanting to know everything about what my child is going through, but facing the same problem only this time reversed.
Awww... does anyone else feel up for a singalong of 'Cats in the Cradle'? :)
Man.
Thats a good piece of writing.
Admittedly after re-reading it doesn't seem like a guy, but thats only after reading frasers comment, and the content is very good.
The whole idea is interesting, I can imagine myself writing something similar about it. If I had come to it, I would have taken slightly different perspective - writing as if this was a potential future (to be avoided). Funny how different thought patterns can lead to similar ideas.
But yeah. Good work.
Wow - thats really interesting seeing everyone's comments. Apparently sharing your issues with your folks is difficult for more people than you would expect.... And all along I thought it must just be me :) Why do you think that is? I mean deep down we know that our parents are looking out for our best interests, so why do we have so much difficulty talking to them about problems in our lives. I'm not a sociologist, just an engineer, but I would be very interested to hear from someone who actually knows about this sort of stuff :)
lol yeah, Fraser, while i was writing it i was gonna change it to a mothers point of view, but since i identify even less with my mother than i do with my father, i figured she'd never think along any of those lines to start with!!
Phil and Paul - i think i was definately thinking about the future when i wrote it too, like I want to know the pain my kids will go through, i dont want them to feel like they have to hide from me. I want to be open with them right from the start.
i dont really know why we have problems communicating with our parents... i thought each case was different, but it appears more of us have difficulty than i realised. i wont say too much here, cos i want to do a post about me and my parents, and parents in general sometime in the future...
But i will say that in our family its cos i think Mum sees parents as parents - guardians, not friends and confidants...
Should you make the transition? i dont know...
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