With every day that passes I remember something I loved about my dad. It wasn’t that he was the greatest man on earth, or the smartest, or the tallest, or the richest. It was that he was my dad and as my father he was without fault.
I remember the day he left, as clear as I remember the day he died.
I was sitting on the dining room table pretending to study for my O Level Geography Exam. He knew I had just spent about 14 hours on the phone with my nutcase boyfriend at the time, so he took the phone and hid it in the bookcase downstairs, making kissing noises and sucking faces at me, while waving his little white whip that I still waiting to get lix with.
The events that followed in the hours after, has always been a blur to me. But what is as clear as the shallowest of ponds is the moment he drove his orange and white patrol out the garage gate packed with his stuff. I vowed never to forgive him. It did not matter that he left, what mattered was that he left me.
This is a memory I lock away in the furthest corners of my heart. The memories I have now are the ones he created throughout his lifetime.
The Writing on the Wall
For about 10 years my dad was rebuilding the Mosque in Masahood Junction, Siparia Old Road where I grew up. He put up a little shack of a mosque across the road from the real building in an empty lot of land. He built this shack with love. He put in partition and floor mats and doors and gradually everyone began to think of it as a permanent fixture in the Village: the Masahood Junction, mini mosque.
Then one day, we heard noises coming from across the road.
Every afternoon after that, I would rush home from Avocat Vedic School, change into my red shorts and white vest, put on my yellow elbow pads and knees pads and helmet and cycle two houses over to the Mosque to see what he was doing.
The day I saw him writing on the wall, was the day I knew my dad was special… to me the greatest man on earth.
Painstakingly, he mounted mortar onto the walls and ceilings of the mosque and with an exacto knife he slowly began carving verses of the Qu’ran. To this day, it is viewed as the most beautiful work of calligraphy in the region. Walking into the mosque now, gives me an eerie feeling. I can still see him sitting on the ledge, carving, shaping, weaving his magic.
Before…After… Before…
An orange and white patrol swung onto the driveway at school and came meandering down the path towards me. The rain was pouring down and I had been waiting for hours upon hours I tell you to be picked up! Fuming I stood on the steps with my hands folded and my face as mean as possible to scare him.
Then I saw a hand stick on the driver’s side window with a broken windshield wiper in it. My dad lovingly began wiping the rain of the windshield with it…
My sister was screaming down de place and running around and around the stove in the kitchen with my dad in hot pursuit with a frying pan. I sat on the counter to watch the drama unfold. They ran and ran for hours my sister shouting for chocolate and my dad yelling he ate it all. Next thing yuh know she turn around and pull down his black Puma track pants and start to laugh. Now with the frying pan in front his crotch he ran upstairs to change his pants…
He was standing in the kitchen making us Maggie every kinda soup because he took all the packs in the cupboard and mixed them together for flavour. Mom had just called and started yelling because she found a case of Slim Fast in de cupboard and want to know what shit it is really he doing with that and then eating ah whole curry chicken and oil dong. Ren and I sat on the counter waiting patiently for dinner. He looks at us stuck his stomach out and said
“ before…”
stomach in
“after..”
whispering now..
“before…. After.” Then he turned back and continued stirring his pot.
I remember the day he left, as clear as I remember the day he died.
I was sitting on the dining room table pretending to study for my O Level Geography Exam. He knew I had just spent about 14 hours on the phone with my nutcase boyfriend at the time, so he took the phone and hid it in the bookcase downstairs, making kissing noises and sucking faces at me, while waving his little white whip that I still waiting to get lix with.
The events that followed in the hours after, has always been a blur to me. But what is as clear as the shallowest of ponds is the moment he drove his orange and white patrol out the garage gate packed with his stuff. I vowed never to forgive him. It did not matter that he left, what mattered was that he left me.
This is a memory I lock away in the furthest corners of my heart. The memories I have now are the ones he created throughout his lifetime.
The Writing on the Wall
For about 10 years my dad was rebuilding the Mosque in Masahood Junction, Siparia Old Road where I grew up. He put up a little shack of a mosque across the road from the real building in an empty lot of land. He built this shack with love. He put in partition and floor mats and doors and gradually everyone began to think of it as a permanent fixture in the Village: the Masahood Junction, mini mosque.
Then one day, we heard noises coming from across the road.
Every afternoon after that, I would rush home from Avocat Vedic School, change into my red shorts and white vest, put on my yellow elbow pads and knees pads and helmet and cycle two houses over to the Mosque to see what he was doing.
The day I saw him writing on the wall, was the day I knew my dad was special… to me the greatest man on earth.
Painstakingly, he mounted mortar onto the walls and ceilings of the mosque and with an exacto knife he slowly began carving verses of the Qu’ran. To this day, it is viewed as the most beautiful work of calligraphy in the region. Walking into the mosque now, gives me an eerie feeling. I can still see him sitting on the ledge, carving, shaping, weaving his magic.
Before…After… Before…
An orange and white patrol swung onto the driveway at school and came meandering down the path towards me. The rain was pouring down and I had been waiting for hours upon hours I tell you to be picked up! Fuming I stood on the steps with my hands folded and my face as mean as possible to scare him.
Then I saw a hand stick on the driver’s side window with a broken windshield wiper in it. My dad lovingly began wiping the rain of the windshield with it…
My sister was screaming down de place and running around and around the stove in the kitchen with my dad in hot pursuit with a frying pan. I sat on the counter to watch the drama unfold. They ran and ran for hours my sister shouting for chocolate and my dad yelling he ate it all. Next thing yuh know she turn around and pull down his black Puma track pants and start to laugh. Now with the frying pan in front his crotch he ran upstairs to change his pants…
He was standing in the kitchen making us Maggie every kinda soup because he took all the packs in the cupboard and mixed them together for flavour. Mom had just called and started yelling because she found a case of Slim Fast in de cupboard and want to know what shit it is really he doing with that and then eating ah whole curry chicken and oil dong. Ren and I sat on the counter waiting patiently for dinner. He looks at us stuck his stomach out and said
“ before…”
stomach in
“after..”
whispering now..
“before…. After.” Then he turned back and continued stirring his pot.
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