Communication Gap

I have always been a loner or rather say I was lonely in most of the path I treaded in life or I don’t know but when I look back then nobody was there for me when I desperately needed an advice or two. I lost my mom when I was a little kid and my dad has always been busy either with his work or gambling. It’s like a guardian angel guiding me, encouraging me to move on. I studied hard, burnt mid night candles, read more books, and read more books. I still remember my father’s forgotten promises of presenting gifts if I topped the class. But I didn’t mind him and ignored his ignorance.

My father brought a stepmother, and I didn’t say anything. Though I didn’t love her, I didn’t hate her also. I thought she was a maid at first, an innocent thought perhaps. But I was sent to a boarding school because my step mother didn’t like me. I didn’t question my dad for sending me away. Off I went to school and never complained. I have seen my friends being homesick and crying. Yeah, I cried a lot reading books and listening to music not because I was homesick but I missed my mom, I guess. I don’t remember a day I didn’t cry in memory of my mom. When I completed my middle secondary, I was kept with my paternal uncles to because my boarding school was very far. My cousins hated me, scribbled in my diary but I studied hard I guess. After completion of my high school, I was off for my college.

Soon I graduated and now I am working in a place not very away from my dad’s place. Though we meet often, we hardly find anything to talk on. Within a day, I would be bored to death not having anyone near me to talk to. As I look into his eyes at his tender age, I can’t believe he is the man who used to beat my mom while she lived. The thoughts overwhelm my heart and my eyes well up but I wonder if I can forgive him for this.  

But deep inside me, I feel my father regrets for all the things he had done or for that matter, the things he had not done in his entire life. He missed all the beautiful things that a father could have experienced. The love, the care, the support, the advices…..he could have given to me but it is too late for him now because that’s what I am doing for my kids. Somehow I feel, I have learnt my lesson through my father. I don’t have much of an idea of being loved by my own parents. And that’s the only thing I regret in life. Perhaps, I will live my life in knowing the truth that I love my children more not my father less.

(*Any resemblance to person living or dead, is purely coincidental)