Sometimes I get this familiar feeling around some conversations, I don’t know what triggers it, though it never lasts long. It’s the feeling that this father is trying to express his love. Where I’m from ( the family not the country) fathers don’t say “I love you” a lot. So you learn to feel their love in gestures and concerns. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve had that directed towards me, a year and a half without the blanket of care I was so used to, a year an a half since papa passed away. I still feel that feeling it’s just not directed towards me, it’s nice however because it reminds me of the time it was.
As I sit in this airport lounge in toronto waiting for my connecting flight to Amsterdam I felt it twice. 2 fathers trying their best to be fathers, long distance. It must be hard commanding authority, expressing love and even just checking up properly without being there in front of your kids. One gentleman is trying his best to understand why the daughter’s friend/sister is behaving differently. The other gentleman being a stern father asking his ward to switch off the iPad, he orders then requests and then orders again, only to realise the kid doesn’t know how to. Now he is trying to be IT help desk for his child. The first gentleman manages to clam his kid and promises to call early tomorrow. Both fathers disconnect the phones with promises and plans to their children. As silence befalls there is an air of longing in the area. I hope someday the kids can remember these efforts from their fathers as fondly as I remember ones from mine. Small gestures and sweet promises are very powerful in life when you think back of why you feel so loved even a year and a half after the one who made them is gone.
I hope these gentlemen don’t mind me eavesdropping on their calls. This took me on a trip I didn’t leave for when I left home today morning and brought me where I needed to be.
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