Fragile

Looking at my dad playing with my niece, coaxing her and watching her every move, I suddenly wondered if these were the same things that my dad had done for me when I was young. I have no memories of my time with my dad when I was young. Really young. My memories with him began when I was about 4 or 5 yrs old - I was sleeping on the sofa while my mom mopped the floor. The door drifted open slowly in bright daylight and in came my dad. I vaguely remember looking at him and thinking "a stranger, yet so familiar". I can't remember the exact words my mom had said but it must have been some kind of assurance that the stranger is my dad. He had gone overseas to work for quite a period of time. But he's now home. I didn't speak to him then, if I remembered correctly.

I was later bribed by the prospect of choosing and getting my own new toy (I usually had hand-me-downs from my sis), and went willingly with him to somewhere and picked up an ugly (now that I come to think of it) white polar bear in a tuxedo. The bribe worked and I was soon talking, playing and pestering him. Many other memories followed. Some good, some bad. But mostly good.

Most of all, I remembered his hands, holding mine, playing peekaboo with me and of course, smacking me at times when I went out of hand. As I looked on at the same pair of hands that now plays with and yet protecting my niece at the same time, it dawned on me that the pair of hands had aged... and it makes me ponder when will I ever be able to bring myself to put my hands in his again, to give them a gentle squeeze to mean that everything's ok, I'm around and alive, and grateful to be clinging on to what had clung onto me when my life was once fragile. To mean that I am sorry for all the regretful things that I had done, even things that were done without his knowledge. And to mean that I will be strong when the day to part does come. I hope time is on my side. It's not in my culture to do or say to him things that are of such sentimental value. And I'm not sure if I ever can. But I will try. It may take time. But I will try.