Tuesday 1 July 2008

Pop

And then I thought: Perhaps that is what it means to be a father - to teach your child to live without you. If so, no one was a greater father than I.



The other day Angie and I were discussing about The Kite Runner and the same wave of emotion I felt after reading the parts about Baba and Amir (father and son) swept over me. Perhaps I feel for it because there's just something between my dad and I that I can't quite reconcile right now. If anything, that's the kinda dad I'd wanna be. Crudely put, it's about teaching your kid to look right, left and right, and then cross; so as not to be cumbered by the rules of traffic and depending on the safety of the green man only to a practical extent. It's about raising your kid so that he or she doesn't feel indebted to you just because you're the parent. I'll never want my kid(s) to bear that burden. I'd like my kid(s) to grow up knowing I'm not owed much, because we often can never come close to repaying the labour of our folks. It is something that we'd only do well to pay forward, leaving a legacy with the upcoming generation and hoping it goes on.




“What about me Baba? What am I supposed to do?” I said, my eyes welling up.

A look of disgust swept across his face. It was the same look he’d give me when, as a kid, I’d fall, scrape my knees, and cry. “You’re twenty-two years old, Amir! A grown man! You…” he opened his mouth and closed it, reconsidering.

“What’s going to happen to you, you say? All those years, that’s what I was trying to teach you, how to never have to ask that question.”




Audio Candy:
Matchbook Romance - Your Stories, My Alibis

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