my father’s words
yesterday, i received a sweet call from my dear father.
he just called to ask, “i haven’t heard your voice in a long time! how are you? how’s your health? are you eating well? are you keeping your body warm? you have to take good care of your health, it is very important.”
it was very heartwarming, though after we hung up, an aching and almost melancholic feeling washed over me.
i miss him. and of course, i also miss my mother.
i don’t know how to explain the pain of being so close, and yet feeling so far… and this remote feeling is not one of pure and simple proximity, but an absence that is not quite an absence of presence; rather, it is a mixture of an unspeakable burden that has caused a unworthy and unnecessary distance.
i know i’ve said this elsewhere before, but recently my mother’s words has frequently revisited the surfaces of my consciousness. “no matter how busy you are, no matter where you are and what you might be doing, there is nothing more important than your family. and you must take as little or as much time as is required to maintain a healthy bond with them. because you will find out in the end if you haven’t already, that even if you lose the whole world, your family will always be there at ground zero, waiting for you to come home, and waiting for you to restart a new you.”
and so, at moments of solitude, moments of sadness or happiness, in times of sunshine, rain, or snow, i think of my parents, what they have sacrificed for men with their infinite and unselfish love and support, i can’t help but feel a deep sense of longing that i must nevertheless swallow back down.
every once in a while, something will remind me of my parents’ age. they are not old, but i know that when that day arrives that one of them must leave forever, i can’t help but feel that i have not done my duty as a daughter. and i am not just talking about the superficial “duties” of keeping the house clean, doing the dishes, making sure their physical health is in excellent condition, but also the psychological “duties” of genuine love that i can never repay. the gift that they have given me is an impossible gift; i cannot return it. and perhaps in this instance, it is a true gift, one that transcends and exceeds all forms and meanings of human commodification where the gift must be returned. because nothing that is in my capability as a human being can ever be done that will equal what my parents have given me. and this realisation has truly put me in a strange state of being.
i know not how to face the day when either of my parents have to leave me. i know not how to prepare for the death of the other. indeed, it is in the finitude of the other that i am confronted with my own finitude.
