Father Knows

The day when I first left home my Pa almost made me cry.  I had chosen to leave for Singapore to work in a plywood factory.  We had very little employment options back home then, but Pa did not approve.  He wanted me to stay on the farm.  But I saw no future in it.  I saw no future anywhere for that matter, but Singapore offered a first step towards my independence.  I couldn't see very far from the bottom of my well.  And it was suffocating me.

Pa was unapproachable when he was younger and I was a confused young man with very poor sense of direction where my career and future were concerned.  And I was equally poor at communication skills.  It was especially bad when it came to communicating with Pa.  We just couldn’t discuss anything face to face.  I used to get angry both with him and myself.  I asked Ma if she thought I could ask Pa to sign approval for my passport.  Ma acted as my ambassador.  She could read his moods better.  She said that he would not.  Ma had always been our go-between.  So I had to wait for my time until I was old enough to get my passport on my own. 

 When I attained my legal age of freedom at twenty-one, I celebrated it by applying for my passport on that very same day.  I felt that I couldn’t live my life hemmed in by so many restrictions.  I had to leave and go somewhere and get a taste of live all on my own.  He couldn’t realize that I needed to find my own niche in life, just as he did when he was my age.  He couldn’t understand that I needed to chart my own course.  Or so, I thought.  

 Pa didn’t say a word while I made my preparations.  As always, he kept his distance and made no comments.  At times he'd mention indirectly about us to Ma that since we're not heeding his advice, he might as well say nothing.  But before I left the house with my bags he suddenly broke his silence and said to me, “If you find it hard out there, just come home.”   I just nodded.  There was a rock in my chest which I couldn't get rid of until I got on the train.

 It took me until years later when I became a father myself that I realized father’s love was always there, no matter what happened and no matter how unemotional or inscrutable he appeared to be, and in spite of what he said in anger.  That anger was mostly caused by the concern and anxiety that he felt for his bungling kids.  It's been there ever since we took those first baby steps when we learned to walk.  Or when we first got onto that bicycle and tried to stay on it.  He did feel hurt when we fell.  But that's not why we didn't climb trees when he was around.  We feared that cane in his hand.  His heart would weep when we cry but he would not show it on his face.  We only saw his anger.

 But I guess Pa finally knew he had to let go or I'd never grow.  Over the years I'd seen the perpetual frown on his face gradually fading, eventually to be replaced by the ever widening smile whenever we went home for a visit no matter how brief.  He must have realized he’d done it right.

 Here’s to you, Pa.