Dads and suchlike

Today I thought I was going to do something about Fathers’ Day, but that went south real fast. I could not talk about fathers without thinking about all the people who don’t have one any more and all the people who never had one.

I couldn’t stop thinking about all the people who wanted to be fathers but didn’t have the chance. Or those who wanted another chance to do it better.

I couldn’t bring myself to write about fathers because I wasn’t sure I had more good than bad to say, and that’s not good on a day on which you’re supposed to be celebrating them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think fathers are great. I’ve met some extraordinary ones. I had one myself and he wasn’t half bad.

So there it is, I can’t write about fathers or Fathers’ Day because I’m only going to end up wanting to talk about my own.

But the thing is, my father, while wonderful, was a profoundly curious creature. I have never met anyone even remotely like him – and while it’s up for debate as to whether this is good or bad – his…himness unequivocally allowed me to see the world the way I do.

I only understand terribleness, half-measuredness or indifference in fathers and other humans in a very academic way. My father, for all his faults – which I can assure you were legion – I believed he loved his job as a father.

He didn’t just love being a father, but the job specs he thought came with it. I do not have the smallest idea what those were, but what he got for his troubles was a small army of fierce daughters.

At least one of them wound up being thoroughly confused by the men she met and the world’s ideas about men and women, and who they were and what they did.

My father never really entertained the possibility that I would do anything but write. And this never bothered him. I am fairly sure that is a luxury shared by few of my generation or offered by many of his.

My father did not fix cars or faucets or radios. He did not fell trees. He did not drink or smoke and never wielded a cutlass at anything other than a coconut. He was heartbreakingly emotional. He had strong opinions about everything, especially classical Indian music, Venus and Serena Williams and Divali decorations.

Someone who spends much more time than I thinking about things like gender, race and social norms and expectations reminded me that it was important to talk about men like my father. Because in many ways he was so not what the world told him he should be, and if you just saw him on the street or in a picture, he was not who the world might have told you he was.

Maybe not the whole world, but as our country continues its quest to make the very worst out of any situation or narrative about race, I like to think of my father and the way in which independence and own-wayness made him something you didn’t see coming.

He didn’t think his girls needed to marry and get out of his way. He didn’t need us to do anything in particular, he just liked having a full house. He liked to feed us and he was good at it.

Where my mother was a pillar of practicality, he was fanciful. He loved his country and never supported any cricket team but the West Indies. What more could I want?

He did not, like so many people of his generation (if he was alive he’d have just turned 91) disregard or shy away from the notion that I was broken in ways he didn’t fully understand at first.

My mother took me to all the doctors and he was always waiting to hear how it went. He took me to some of the more eccentric pundits (take from that what you will). Because somehow, in some way, something had to give. Something had to make me better.

Most of all, he always let me know he had my back. And when sisters married, he made sure they knew they could change their minds

We quarrelled endlessly. I see now how lucky I was to have had that. One day, after another marathon argument, he said, “No one can win an argument against you.”

And I said, “Dad, why would I get into a fight I couldn’t win?”

He smiled.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.