Waking up when it is too late

The Nation

Somewhere during the end of December 2012, I visited Sigiriya for the first time. The climb threw me into an ocean of feelings that confused and suffocated me. It was a journey that made me realize how easy we are to replace. It was a journey that made me realize how terms like Amma, Thaththa, Duwa and Putha are special. I’ve only called one person Amma, one person Thaththa and so on. In fact, I’ve never called more than one person Athamma, Seeya, Mama or Nanda. Others who were also my grandparents, aunts or uncles, were either addressed by their names followed by Seeya, Athamma, etc or were addressed by synonyms, for instance Achchi instead of Athamma.

Background pic by Kevin Fernando

However, I’ve been called Duwa by many people, not just my parents. My grandparents, uncles and aunts and a few other grown ups call me Duwa. There are also the strangers I’ve met, friends of my parents and teachers, to whom I will always be a daughter.

Somehow, while I don’t give much thought to being a daughter to many, I want to be the only daughter of my parents. This isn’t an issue since I’m the only girl in the family, and since my cousins aren’t a threat to the love my mother shows me, I have never been bothered when my mother called them Duwa or Putha. However, last year, during the trip, I realized my father called his niece Duwa, and I certainly didn’t want to share him with people I don’t even know well.

However, this wasn’t the only thing that bothered me about the trip. What hit me the most was how my father chose that Duwa over me, his own daughter. Sure, she’s years younger than I am, a kid, and needed more help than I did. However, it hurt that I had to climb Sigiriya all alone, and when there was nothing to hold on to, I knew that girl had my father’s hand to hold. It was then that I felt the most abandoned.

We went on another trip recently, and went for a short walk in Sinharaja. This time, especially during the walk back, my father and I spent a lot of alone time together. We spoke about various things, and this time I knew I had someone to hold on to. I knew he would help me through the rocky areas. And he did help me through certain areas. But most of the time, I didn’t need him.

That’s when it hit me that we truly do fly away from the nest our parents create for us. They work hard to give us everything they never had in life; luxuries that often end up doing more harm than good. In most families, both parents work. Thus children see very little of them.

There is a story of a little boy who asks his father how much he’s paid for an hour of work. The father tells him, and the son then asks for 50 dollars or so from the father. The boy is told he has no need for money. The story ends when the son tells his father that he needed the money to have enough to buy an hour of his father’s life, just so the boy could spend some time with him.

Who do you remember the most from your childhood; your parents or the person who took care of you? Most of us are fonder of our grandparents because they were there for us when we were small. Who wiped our tears when we bruised our knees? Who made us dinner and let us stay up till late? Who made pillow forts for us to play in?

We are birds who will fly away, and as we leave our teens and slowly take steps into adulthood, our parents wake up. They realize they spend very little time with us, that they don’t really know us. So they make time. They show us they are there. They take us out for meals, movies and other outings. Sadly, they choose to be there when we no more have a need for them.