Money grows on trees

An ode for this father's month

“shining coins” PC: Reena Kapoor (c)2023. Instagram @1stardusty

Money grows on trees 

“Young ladies, does money grow on trees?”,

my father would shake his head to ask.

Rhetorical, as many of the 

philosophical questions, he’d

pose to my sister and I.

Usually after we’d presented a

case for a new bauble we must 

possess, having depleted our

meager “pocket money” on other 

temptations that waylaid our paths.

*

Eager supplicants we’d jump to answer,

for it was, we knew, a jocular exchange.

Such questions meant we were winning.

“Sure it does, Papa! Look outside…”

At which point he’d peer outside, shaking,

his head, “Sure! I see it now!”

All this banter would pour out from him  

as if complaining about our burdens!

Anyone listening would think, what a 

penny-pinching father this is!

But they’d have to know us, to know 

how far from the truth they’d landed.

*

These were my father’s sweet protests 

even as he readied to buy the trifles

our insatiable hearts demanded!

Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate bars, 

Poppins and Chocobars,

Coca-Cola until it was banned there…

Dizzying high heels in our teen years 

He’d pay up vigorously rolling his eyes, 

“How can anyone walk in those?”

Or a vinyl record we’d been pining for,

“This noise will command the player!

When will I play my ghazals?”,

he’d lament in mock horror emptying 

his wallet to make space for our clamoring.

*

A dream arrived last night in which

I’m smothering his big cheeks

with kisses and he’s nodding with 

that happy, content warmth I miss.

I woke up smiling in secure captivity

surrounded by a love that lives and

thrives even in these years that come

after his gentle, unassuming passing.

As if he’s here, saying, “Give abundantly. 

Little things are big things.”

*

The way he lived!

###

-reena | April 2023

This is Father’s Day Month. I missed posting this exactly on Father’s Day but, all through this month, I’m celebrating my Dad, my husband and all those who’ve been present and good fathers, grandpas, uncles or in any small or significant way played the role of a diligent father at any point to any kid who needed it. We now know from overwhelming evidence on families, the importance of fathers, both for boys and girls, in how it comes to shape so much of what we expect, give and take from life. A literally or metaphorically absent father is a great tragedy; an unwilling, unhappy, unloving father perhaps worse?

I’ve talked to many who lost their fathers too young or had fathers who tried but could not give better because of their own demons and battles or who meant well but adhered to strange rules and gods which dictated detached parenting or who saw their own role as simply that of a physical provider. So many ways to miss out on that father-child bond. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault that this happens. Getting more in life on this front is often just the luck of the draw. It’s why I feel fortunate to have had a loving father who I adored and admired for a large part of my life. I can’t imagine that canopy of care missing from childhood, and I now more fully appreciate what a big loss it could be.

My mother lost her father at age 5 and she would often remark how she didn’t remember her father much, but just how much she missed his presence after seeing our father (her husband) being the loving father that he was. I never understood what she meant back then. Now I do. The irony is that in the past couple of years after my father’s passing it’s been hard to celebrate Father’s Day, even though the importance of this day has risen even more in my mind. Meanwhile, I try to focus on all the small, sweet memories he left behind - his love, his humor, how content and filled with gratitude he was in the grace and beauty of small things. I seek to emulate so much of that. That’s where this poem came from.

Extra!

I recommend this recent memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, I read about a girl who desperately loves her father who’s there but not quite and often missing entirely, and the hunger she has for his attention and love. Ironically she grows up in a greatly privileged life, where her father more than provides for her and her mother. Yet the vacuum of his fatherhood that he cannot provide consistently for many reasons - mostly related to his own baggage - exacts a rich price. The book is no cliche of an unhappy childhood; instead it’s etched with incredible love, longing for what was lost and without self-pity. It moved me deeply.

Extra! Extra!!

New short story coming next time!