From Another Life:
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Stillwater, OK

Today was an Achan day, what I mean is a Dad day. Its one of those twenty four hours when everything I say, do and listen to is speaking to me of my father. Today I search for his favorite songs on the web and try to think like he does when he hears the melody. Today I miss him a lot. Funny how some memories are stronger than others, eh? I vividly feel the deep warmth and the rub of his palm. I see the butterfly shaped nicotine stain on two of his front teeth and I can hear him sing. But as hard as I try I cant hear his voice saying my name, not at all. I like the way he wrote his 9s and 4s - such style the man had! And I can smell the combination of sandalwood incense and cigarettes on him too. It was the tobacco that killed him you know. Its been thirteen years and I can still smell him, feel him. And yet sometimes I cant even remember his face without looking at a picture. I forget that my smile is exactly like his and my toes without the pink nailpolish could almost be his - until someone tells me about it. And then I think"God! I love my toes." The man who called me "little lady" and kept a 11-year old me up until midnight trying to get me to pronounce 'succumb' right - he is so much a part of me, so much in my every breath I cannot imagine how I could forget him. But I have, many times, now-a-days almost all the time. And its not my conscience that smote me, its his legacy I have shrugged off that pinches. I am apalled that I could be so ashamed of the girl my dad proudly called his 'kochu sundari' - his little beauty. Because somehwere in me, in my being that wallows constantly in self pity, there is his heritage. And to that I have failed to be true. His words always were his to command, a small feat for a man who could often command his emotions - herculean tasks for the likes of me. I cant help wondering what he must be thinking of me, the woman I have become, the human being I am striving to be.