letter from a daughter to her father...

May 2008 is when i had written the letter below and today when i received a similar letter from a friend to her father, i thought, i could share this with you... in that other letter, it is a similar tale of growing up, of growing away from where she began, the path she has traversed and how insecure she is without her dad... and this post is dedicated to that friend of mine...

Dear Dad,
Ten years on, rather six months less than ten years, I am writing again. Looking through those earlier writings, I decided it is time I wrote again, just to tell you how far I have been able to follow what you had told me way back in 1980… “be guided by your head, not heart.” What you did not tell me -- possibly left it unsaid for me to learn myself, was the tool I had to apply, the method I had to adopt, to get on with this business of living and life – detachment.
Today, at 42, I would not say, I know how perfectly to negotiate life. It seems too tall a claim. But I certainly can tell you that I have become more seasoned, more mature, and more confident, more focused, less clumsy, less emotional. I am able to decide with firmness. I rarely break down if at all. I rarely feel that lump inside the throat, or those burning eyes, trying to fight back tears when things go wrong.
And things do go wrong even now – at home, at work, with my child, sometimes with friends and even my spouse. But I have learnt to deal, tackle, manage and move on, putting those instances aside, not letting them interfere with the process of everyday life. Yes, what I do very often, and here again, in my mind, it is one image of yours that keeps popping up… your pacing up and down at home, with a heavy look on your face. What I do is also similar… nope, I do not pace up and down, with a heavy face, you know I am lazy… but while I am alone (and very often I am, while I drive back and forth the whole city for work, for running domestic errands or for dropping the child to her classes), I am in constant dialogue with myself… the mind races with those things that went wrong, going over and over again at the particular instance that is troubling me, trying to assess what was my responsibility in the whole affair. And, when the heaviness in the heart ceases, I know I have addressed the issue, dealt with it. Not a soul comes to know how, but I know I have and it gives a great feeling within that I have succeeded once again. Should I call it independence? I do not know but one thing I certainly know, I will tell my daughter how to try living from the day go. In fact, this is one thing I told you then too… that I would rear her well. She is grown now, does most of her things by herself – but I still have to tell her about the art of detachment. I will not leave her to discover it herself – while that discovery might give her an edge, it certainly will corrode the freshness of her face, the lilt in her smile and the look of her eyes.
Yes, all of these are no longer there in me…while I am more at ease with life in general, there is no freshness in the face, no lilt in my smile and no innocence in the eyes. I have come of age. And that I hope to fight in my child.
I can almost see you smile…and I know the reason. You are trying to ask me: How will so attached a mother teach her daughter detachment? But as I said, I am more prepared now… ten years back, I would have been stumped with this question, leaving you to laugh condescendingly at my inexperience… but not any more… I am armed with a logic now: I will at least tell her, it is up to her to understand, learn and practise it in life.
Let’s agree to differ if the logic does not appeal to you. But at least I have told you what it is that you did not tell me, while holding my hand and teaching me how to walk, you left unsaid that the road of life is so difficult, and more so, without a loving hand.
And here, I better be honest -- I still remain that child of yours who is, by now, struggling to fight back tears since it is only a Dad who would listen to so much of complaints after so many years.
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