I’ve been told my hands are like my fathers: long fingers with veins protruding. The similarities of our hands are all I can think about as I glance down at my hands holding the straw basket. Maybe it is because my brother, mother and I had watched as nurse after nurse had attempted to find a vein in my father’s arms to insert the IV into. One IV on each arm. Tubes seemingly going into almost every part of his body.
It is strange, for lack of a better word, to see a man who had never relied on anyone or anything, relying on IVs and tubes to stay alive.
That evening in the hospital, 24th January 2024, the first of many evenings my father would spend in the hospital, I sat with him, gently rubbing circles into his palm with my fingers. His palm was very clammy, a sign of an impending heart attack.
24 th January 2024 also marked the first time in a long time that I had prayed.
Sometimes I wonder if saying a prayer that evening was even worth it. Even though my father did come home it was for a mere six months. Despite the constant worry and hospital and clinic visits he kept gardening during those six months.
The sound of the latch on the deck gate opening usually meant that he was going down to the garden and I’d see his straw hat bobbing up and down from the upstairs windows. He’d come back inside, face lit up with pride, with an assortment of fresh produce: bhaji, pumpkin, bhindi, tomatoes and carrots.
We knew his health worried him. The worry lines were etched deep into his forehead, but every time I’d ask how he was feeling, the reply was always upbeat. Maybe he silently cried while he was in the garden, his tears nourishing the soil and the seeds he’d gently deposit into the soil.
He swallowed his worry so we wouldn’t worry, he also swallowed and broke certain cycles of toxic patriarchy he’d grown up with. He played an active role in his children’s upbringing, helped in the kitchen, and treated his wife with the utmost respect and love, which set the tone for the relationship we would share; I respected my father more for the way he treated my mother.
Locking up the house is now my responsibility. Every evening as I pass by his study, I wish I could tell my Abba about the bhindi seedlings I’ve planted, how I gently pat the soil after depositing the seeds the way he did, the way his mother did in Fiji.
I also wish I could tell him how we’re eating the tomatoes that have sprouted from the seedlings he planted days before that last fateful visit to the hospital.
~the end~
