If we were to meet on the street today, in a bizarre chance encounter, you'd probably comment on how I am a spitting image of someone you once loved dearly. I'd stand motionless on the pavement, deliberating over an indisputable thought; that after 12 years of not seeing each other we would, in fact, be complete strangers.
You'd still be my 36 year-old frizzy haired dad, of course. A quiet and contemplative man to untrained eyes, but a fireball phenom that never failed to fascinate me. You would be fixed in time, impervious to change.
But I am no longer that doe-eyed, curious little girl you once knew. I don't look like her, I don't talk like her. These twelve years have taken its toll on me. I'm not your dazzling ball of sunshine anymore.
To my 8-year old mind, you were as mystical as a parting sea. I wonder how much that innocent perception would have changed had you lived to raise me. One can never be too sure of these things.
But there is one bitter truth I'll always be sure of- no one lights up when they see me as wonderfully as you did back then.
If the cosmos intervenes and we meet each other as strangers today, I would give you a hug and tell you how much I love you. Just for a second, you would recognize the strain in my voice as the same one you used to hear from your little girl who called her Ayah late at night, begging him to come home from work.
I'd wipe away the tears from your confused face and with that, we would part once again.
Happy Birthday, Ayah.
2 comments:
*hugs* I am sure he will always be proud of his girl no matter how many transformations she's been through. Happy birthday to him.
This entry hits me hard as it has been 15 years for me.
Thanks Afi, you don't know how much that means to me. It's exactly what I needed to hear tonight.
The years just fly by, don't they?
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