For the past year or so, I had been experiencing an intense desire to be held for fifteen minutes. Yes, fifteen.
I longed to be wrapped still in unconditional, physical love. And it was only today, upon reflecting how my father used to say “Beta [daughter in Urdu], come here” did I recognize this. Those sweet words were always a signal of a uniquely reliable hug to follow.
They say a father-daughter relationship is special.
My father passed away a little less than a year ago, I was in Malaysia working at the time he was put on life support. And by the time I reached the hospital in California, he had not been awake for over 24 hours. The first words from the medical staff, as I rushed to his hospital room door were, “Here put these on,” handing me a cape and rubber gloves.
Among wires and the looming threat of MRSA (contagious upon touch), I was not even able to hug his unresponsive body. In fact, I could not remember the last hug that I had given him.
Until now, I had not known precisely how to capture and embrace my natural desire to be held. I did not recognize the urgency as it build within me. I choo’ed it away like a nagging mother. I walked it out a few mornings at sunrise in Kuala Lumpur. I scrolled and clicked obsessively. I listened to numbingly loud music. I drank red wine. I worked to fatigue, but I never said it. I never asked.
My life spanned three children, a long-distance husband due to divergent careers, 1300+ Facebook friends, coworkers, and three geographies; however, still, I carried with me the weight of an emptiness, an ailment, wanting to be held. And with time, the aches and pains only grew, demanding more and more of my attention, in the form of a loss of appetite, social avoidance, feeble hands, and despondence.
Upon seeing me drink yet another cup of coffee earlier this week, my mom casually remarked, “You’re becoming like your dad.” I did not know what to make of that at the time.
Over time, I had mistaken it for the lack of intimacy in my life, a less-than-fulfilling career, the significant responsibility of parenthood, the immense pressure to succeed, and other dopplegangers of the life-threatening disease of loneliness. But it is only today, that I realized that in an uber-connected, fast-paced world of Skypes and flying fingers, I was degenerating due to lack of deep human contact –the kind that came so naturally to my father, as a parent.
And only as a result of this, did I realize that in my father’s last years, it was not the diabetes, heart issues, and enfeeblement that killed him; rather, it was his requests for company being met by silence, the busyness of his children, the din of childbirths and marriages around him, the constant flurry of tasks and the celebration of anything and everything but the life he had been living. He had slowly lost the desire to fully live each day though ironically, death was not what he had wanted either.
His most solid companion was a cigarette, a habit he had taken up in his memorable youth in Pakistan. However, that, in its own right was a curse, his lungs liquefying at death.
When I used to tell him to quit, his answer was consistent, “I will … tomorrow.” Tomorrow – as for so many other things – never came.
The sad part is that I never did notice when he stopped asking for us to come near, or hugs. I blamed it on his illness, assumed he had just gotten quieter – that he needed the rest. And little did I realize that he had lost the ability to ask for a reason.
We had always shared something very intimate in common: a love for stories. He would read with me every evening after work, until I reached high school. We would jot down all of the words I did not know and look them in a red Merriam Webster dictionary, which sit on his side table. In my pre-teen years, I became the type of girl who would lock herself in the closet or bathroom to finish a book in peace.
I have always connected with my father through my mind, in fiction.
He had been the editor of the paper at his large university in Pakistan. However, in the US, for economic reasons, his career took a turn to finance. He never did get to tell his stories to anyone.
I have so many questions about his life, such unfinished business.
He passed away only a few days after Father's Day. So, although some people think that it is "just a day in the year", and ask why cannot everyday be one of appreciation; there is probably a reason that we set aside a particular day to make it happen.
As for me, it had been ages since someone had held my hand in conversation. I never did take or have a proper space to grieve my father’s death, as given is so many traditions. I had funeral sex.
And I could not recall the last time that I had been wrapped in unconditional love, even as I witnessed my father’s clean body wrapped in white funeral cloth, before he was forever buried. I was a few days too late.