For my father.

Twice now, death has met me on the way to work. Once for my mom and now this second time for my dad.

Yesterday morning, my father died.

I'm flying back east tomorrow for the funeral and my first thought was that I would post a quick little note saying that I wouldn't be blogging for a while because of a 'family emergency'. Then I realized there isn't any emergency. Death isn't an emergency, it just is.

The other reason I was going to post it as "an emergency" was because I'm a fiercely private person and I know some of my friends read this blog. It seems Jerry-Springer-like to announce watershed events of my life in a blog. But because of the tragic and uncomfortable circumstances surrounding my mother's death many many years ago, when I couldn't talk to anyone, I feel the need to be public about my grief. And I've always found writing a wonderful way to figure things out. And who knows, blogging may inspire me to finish the 'Great Candian novel' that all of us keep in the back of our closets along with our old shoes and skeletons.

So today's post will be highly personal and it will be dedicated to the memory of my father.

Things hadn't been easy between my father and his three daughters over the last little while for various reasons and as a result I hadn't spoken with him in a while. Well to be honest it was 3 months. My family saga could be the movie of the week, Bollywood style. Without the dancing and singing, thankfully.

My dad was your typical East Indian patriarch (albeit with a slight English accent), he expected us to obey and respect him regardless of what he said or did. Like so many immigrants of his generation, he valued status, education, and family. You had 'arrived' in this country if you had two cars sitting in the driveway of your house and one of them was a Mercedes. This ambition for status was a way of getting retribution from first hand experiences with racism.

Sadly, after he remarried he distanced himself from his old friends and family. For me, I felt that I had to work twice as hard to maintain a level of closeness we had felt at different times in our relationship. Sometimes it was too hard and he was so bloody stubborn.

But, you know, my dad was also a generous, wonderful, and loving man. He was kind. Kind-hearted is the word I would use to describe him. Even as his face grew heavier with age like the willow tree whose branches are full of flowers, his face had a perpetual smile. My dad also had charm, borne of English ancestry, mainly because England is where he spent most of his young adulthood. I think of all of us, my sister, Fortune, inherited his charisma.

He was a man, much like India full of massive contradictions. Despite his traditionalism, he had a streak of Western rebellion. When I left my first husband I was afraid to tell him because I thought he would tell me to go back and work it out. But he didn't. His first question was, "How are you? Are you okay? I love you." The divorce coincided with the PhD, making my life so overwhelming. Somedays it would be so hard just to get out of bed. It was during those times when I couldn't function, that he would call just to make sure his little girl was eating her vegetables.

He would ask, "What did you eat today, MyHeart (translation from Urdu of his name for me)?"

"Bread and some cheese."

"What about some vegetables and fruit."

"I dunno. I just don't feel like eating dad."

"Well fruits and vegetables are good for you. At least eat one piece of fruit today."

"Why does it matter?"

"It matters because one day someone will love you again. It matters because I worry about you and don't want you to fall sick."

My roommate at the time, LittleRobin, always thought it was uncanny that my dad would phone just at the exact time when I was feeling so incredibly lost and sad. It wasn't really that uncanny. He loved me. He was my biggest confused supporter during my PhD. I say confused because I don't think he really understood what it was that I did. A couple of times I tried to tell him but then gave up and said "I study why BigTallGreenThings have sex." I could hear the look of bewilderment on his face through the phone, "Come on now don't be silly."

(Yes, but in a nutshell it was true.)

My PhD was a long haul, but he never asked when are you going to defend? Are you done yet? Questions that most graduate students dread, especially because they see their friends who started with them getting post-docs and tenure-track jobs.

Finally, when I did defend that he told me how proud he was and that I took ten years off his life.

Then over the past year, there were some really hard times. We always want to romanticize the lives of those that pass away, but the relationships we have with our parents are complicated. They are constantly changing. If we are lucky, the valleys don't last too long. If we are unlucky, then the person you love dies while the relationship is in a valley.

I'm so sorry dad that I couldn't be there during the last few hours of your life to tell you that I have always loved you.