A Father’s Lesson on Love
The language of love baffles the lover
Even the poet is left stumbling for words
Love, the way my father tells me —
is something that is true and real
Felt from the heart, he says
The love between my mother and him
is not from only the good days
But the struggles, bad times, fights and sickness
It is choosing to commit
It is caring for one another instead of choosing one's own comfort
It is the tug of longing for your other on those work trips
When Abbu told me the story of the King who built a grand castle for his wife that passed
When he spoke of the marbles and grief that he had brought to India
It wasn’t the story that touched me
His lesson weaved in soft words and gentleness
The passing down of values from a father to a daughter
His own tender love, is what touched me
Despite the cultural standards and conventional migrant outlook,
my father understanding marriage to not be for survival but for inner contentment,
is what touched me.
He told me to choose love
And to assess the emotion that comes from deep inside me
He sat me down and took out his phone
And showed me photos of the Taj Mahal and its gems
I wondered why he thought the way he did, why he chose to speak to me today
Surely it was the years spent with my mother
Surely it was through watching his first two children through their marriages
Surely it was through witnessing the stories of those who did not choose love.
And I thought to myself the love a parent is more sacred than anything in this world.
