Heart of the Matter
By: Navin (June 18th, 2008)
Dear beloved Son,
This is the first day in years that I have spent without listening to your voice. I still remember the first day I saw you besides your mother in the hospital. Oh what joy to have held you in my arms for the first time, my heart was pounding so hard just thinking that I am a proud father and the responsibility that was to follow.
You grew in my arms those first few years and you became the centre of our lives, both of us made all our plans, with ‘you’ as the priority of our lives. Probably we were overwhelmed and did not know how to react and we decided to bring you all the good things in life. We never compromised on anything that was important to you, whether it was your studies or health. We brought home the best that money could buy.
But since you were our only son, we sometimes gave you things that you craved for. Maybe we should not have. You were the first one to get that brand new bicycle among your friends and you showed it off proudly to everybody in the neighborhood. We were so glad for you. You were the first to get the latest version of video games, that to you became the most important possession. All your time was spent on it, although we wanted you to talk to us and we wanted to share our hearts with you. But in your joy, lay all our happiness. So we allowed you to do whatever that pleased you.
Slowly your friends and your life started becoming more important to you. You no more thought we were important in your life. The sound of games, the latest mobile phone, flashy bike and your music just put our voices too far from you. I know our relationship had strained.
Then it was this time last year, when I thought that if I did not exercise some control on your life, then your whole life was going to become a mess. I became the father I should have been long back. I tried to discipline you and wanted you to score the best marks in your 12th grade. I sometimes pushed you to the limits and you treated all my advice with contempt.
Your continuous failures were frustrating me and your mom. This was not what we dreamt for you. Out of sheer frustration, I for the first time used the rod to discipline you. But the ‘rod’ was too late. It had raised the ‘prodigal son’ in you.
May be for the first time in my life I started to appreciate my own father, what he had done for me. He gave me his best out of his poverty but he laid the strong foundations when I was young. He never spared the rod when I was wrong and I held it against him for a long time. But if he had not done that then I would have gone astray. I can’t thank him enough for what he did for me. Probably it magnifies my failure as a father.
You got your results yesterday and you thought that you had let your parents down. More than that you knew that tough days lay ahead and you were not prepared for it. And then you decided to relieve yourself of this pain and stop being an insult for your parents. You took your life by your own hands.
You thought this will reduce the pain in us. No son, when I held your body on my own shoulders, I had on me the biggest burden that I will ever carry in my life.
My heart is broken. We did not want your marks, but we wanted you. Probably we both lost the heart of the matter! Now we have lost everything.
Your devastated Dad.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Time to thank our parents and time to learn to be better parents ahead… Thanks a lot to the author. God bless.