“Your daughter is the best thing that ever happened to my son.” Mark’s dad said as he shook my father’s hand. “She is just marvelous. You must be so proud of her.” he added. My father looked surprised, confused, mystified. He appeared to be at a loss of words; my father is never at a loss of words. One thing he didn’t appear was proud.
We were in England visiting Mark’s family. As we were planning our trip from America, I had come to know that my father was traveling at the same time from India to Amsterdam. Mark and I had been together 6 years. My father had met Mark twice when we had traveled to India, but so far he had not met Mark’s family. I leaned in to the universe – it was the right time for our two families – Mark’s dad, mom, sister, brother-in-law, nephew to meet my family – my father. My mother had passed away from a stroke when I was a teenager, my sister had succumbed to cancer 6 years prior. Our every loss had estranged us further; my father withdrawing from the world to nurse his wounds, I opening up to the world trusting it to heal my heart.
When I met Mark’s father for the first time, my entire idea of fathers was challenged. I grew up with a father who was demanding, critical, a hard task-master. He was reserved and hard to please. He had accomplished great things in life – a son of a clerk he had built himself from the ground up – becoming a top engineer in All India Radio, traveling the world, his name was in the “International who’s who” book in the 1990s – something he mentioned often. My father was so well-educated; he was not just a Dr. but a Dr. Dr. due to the double PHDs he had earned. My father had earned his station in life. You had to earn his love.
Mark’s dad – on the contrary – seemed easygoing, understanding, demonstrative of his love. A WWII Polish refuge who spent the formative years of his life moving from a gulag in Siberia to the British refugee camp in Kenya, he had learnt his lessons from the book of life. When he arrived at the age of 16 as an immigrant in the UK, there was neither time nor opportunity for him to pursue higher education. Instead he became a craftsman, a machinist, a lathe operator, making parts for aircrafts and mining equipment with such precision & skill that an error a hundredth of millimeter (less than a thousand of an inch; it’s called a “thou”) was unacceptable. He didn’t do a doctorate, he didn’t travel the world – although he did go back to Kenya to visit the home of his childhood – he too excelled in his work. But his legacy was his children. He adored his children. He adored Mark.
I was a young teenager when my mother passed away from a stroke. My father – who was not a homemaker – that was my mother’s thankless job – at a complete loss with what to do with two teenage daughters, got remarried within a year. He abhorred loneliness and he desperately wanted his daughters to have another mother-figure. He was a world-renowned engineer so naturally he missed reading any of the numerous step-mother fairytales. Our step-mother was so kind to us that the day she arrived in our lives, we magically turned into Cinderellas. The ensuing years were painful both for my sister & I, and for him, as we grew more & more estranged, neither able to listen to the other.
My sister and I decided to move to America to follow our dreams – something our father had inculcated in us since we were children, something he could have been proud of. But he was not proud. You are not proud of strangers or of people you are estranged with. Pride requires a sense of “ownership” – it says, “you are my person – and you are cool – so I am proud of you”. My father and I were not each other’s person anymore.
Before I met Mark, he was married to another woman, who suffered from mental illness & had an uncompromising personality. Over time their marriage became a shell. Mark stayed, she had nowhere to go, she was self-absorbed and had difficulty keeping a job, how would she survive? So he continued in a loveless non-marriage for over 16 years. It aged him. And it aged his dad. Mark finally found a way to end his marriage without abandoning her. Then I showed up in his life and 16 years of winter turned into spring.
Mark’s dad saw his son having a true partner for the first time. Every time we visited England in those days, his dad would tear up & say to me “you rescued my son. I will be forever grateful.”
So when he said those words to my father about his daughter being the best thing that ever happened to his son, he meant them. My father at a loss – both at the story behind the words; I had never told him about Mark’s past – and of his own connection with me; through our years of estrangement our lives had taken us far from each other, he barely knew who I was, who I had become. He smiled – a bit uncomfortably and followed with a non-sequitur.
I looked at my two dads – one who had brung me in this world, raised me, taught me so much of what I know, instilled in me the high-minded ambition that brought me to America & that is part of my cellular structure. The man who didn’t know how to be proud of me anymore.
And my other dad, who had met me barely 6 years ago, didn’t have anything in common with me, but who somehow had the capacity to see me for who I was, who I am. And who had permitted himself to fall in love with me, a total stranger, such that I was now ‘his person”. The man who was proud of me.
Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com