Celebrating Father’s Day with 3 unique stories that encapsulate the essence of a child’s relationship with him. One of the most touching relationships, it is also often blemished with complexities, miscommunication, and fumbling awkwardness, but despite all the challenges and confrontations (or lack thereof) love overcomes every obstacle.
Son’s First-Ever Dance Recital
The morning of it goes how you expect it to – rushed breakfast, undone laces, half-packed bags, and crooked ties. Amidst the chaos, a father walks over to his 12-year-old, on the brink of puberty, overflowing with angst and rage, to knot his tie correctly. The son grumbles and pushes him away, but a father does not budge.
Things happen, life gets in the way. In between quibbles and coffee runs, unmet deadlines and impudent bosses, time slips away and dance recitals get missed. It happens once, twice, countless times, and soon, the son is submerged in the wrath of adolescence, unwilling to talk, and averse to listening.
Ego is a funny thing. It gets in the way, dismantles structures, and wrecks everything you once knew. If you were to ask me, ego has no cure – like a horrible illness clinging to every cell in your body. But, like every hopeless scenario, miracles emerge. Sometimes, somewhere, maybe, they happen.
It so happened once, when a once innocent and sweet-eyed little boy grew to become a handsome, young man, who like every other high-schooler his age, had established boundaries. So when he gets ready, the morning of the most important day of his short life, graduation day, he is all too familiar with the chaos that comes with it. And although he isn’t speaking to anyone at home because of a fight he had the night before, the cause of which he doesn’t remember himself, but is too proud to back down, he seeks his mom’s help. In a haste, they both prepare burnt toast, run around like headless chickens, fight about who doesn’t love whom; mom adamant, yes, your father does love you. But stubbornness runs in the family, well, prove it then!
While all this goes on, a seemingly unbothered father sat before the breakfast spread, stands up to face his son, both too proud to acknowledge a son’s favourite doughnuts a father had specially bought that morning, and too egoistical to point out a crooked tie, stark against a perfectly crisp suit.
They both stand, eye to eye, not saying a word. A mother stands speechless, frightened at what is about to unfold. She observes silently as a proud father melts, but not showing it on his face, as he bends a little to correct a terribly knotted tie, looking in the other direction; and a son, looking in the opposite direction, as he picks up a glazed doughnut, still too proud to eat it.
(Picture Credits: Canva)
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