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Destiny
Whenever I have been asked if I believe in destiny, I tend to use this analogy:
We are the captains of our own vessels and steer our own course in life. We make our choices and our destiny is determined by what these choices are. We do not, however, have any control over the sea (our situations) or the climate (environment). To be a good captain, we learn to master our vessel in the worst of conditions. We learn to face the storms and conquer them and then repair our vessels when we are in calmer waters. Such is life.
INTRODUCTION
My biological father was a brilliant man. In his twenties he seemed to have the world at his feet. He was tall and goodlooking with a razor sharp mind and a deep resonant voice. People were usually mesmerised by him and he used his charisma to good effect. My mother was born to a wealthy and respected family in England and lived a life of luxury, finishing off her education at a Swiss finishing school. She was and still is a beautiful woman. This could have been a fairy story. Ya know? Boy meets girl, they fall in love and they live happily ever after. The reality was very different. My mother fell pregnant with me out of wedlock. Nowadays this is not a big deal, then it was shameful and my horrified grandmother suggested an abortion. (She told me this years later, not for one moment thinking that she was talking to the 'abortion') My mother stubbornly insisted on having the baby and marrying my father. I thank God for her obduracy.
My dad had a drinking problem. He was not a rolling drunk and managed to hold down a career and convince others that he had it all together. He embarked on a fairly successful career in politics and was often to be heard on the radio espousing his political beliefs with a great deal of conviction. He may have made a difference had his drinking not eventually caught up on him. His drinking led to philandering, which in turn led to the break up of his marriage and ultimately the loss of his children. In spite of his many flaws, my brother Rupert and I adored our father and when he disappeared out of his life we were devastated. My story begins when I was eighteen. I had searched for him for a long time and finally found him.
THE BEGINNING
I replaced the receiver with shaking hands and tried to calm my racing heart. In a few hours I would see my father again after ten years of painful absence. I closed my eyes briefly and concentrated on the image I had of him. The last time I had seen him, my brother Rupert and I had ridden with him in his sports car with the top down. He had allowed us to stand up on the seat (which would have been forbidden by my very strict step father) and we screamed with excitement as he raced down the highway, laughing from the thrill of it. I smiled as I remembered him lifting me out of the car and kissing my forehead,
"There you go princess. How was that?" The other images kept rising up out of the sunshine that was that moment but I pushed them down. He was my father and I loved him.
I was unprepared for the moment of our meeting. I remembered him as tall and handsome and somehow he seemed to have shrunk. His broad shoulders were now bony and his face was lined. His vivid blue eyes seemed to have faded and the dark hair had turned grey. There was virtually no sign of the father I remembered and it was hard not to hide my shock. He reached out to hold me and I hugged him but he was a stranger to me and I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. After hugging me for a few minutes, he held me at arms length and gazed at me with searching eyes,
"Ah Chanti, you are a beauty like your mother. Did you get anything from your Dad?" I grinned then and responded, "Yes, a death wish!" I was talking about his habit for taking risks. It was something that I seemed to have inherited because I was always up for an adventure and often faced danger in its pursuit. He laughed loudly and I remembered... that laugh. He WAS my dad.
I stood at the side of the hospital bed and held his hand. "Dad can you hear me?" He squeezed my hand lightly and his eyelids fluttered. "Dad, please don't go? I need you now. Please!" I watched as a tear escaped from the corner of one eye and choked on my own tears. I could not stay there in that hospital room and escaped to the corridor to cry with huge heaving sobs. A doctor approached.
"Are you family?" he asked.
"Yes, I am his daughter." I answered vainly wiping tears from my face and trying to control my voice. "Is he going to die?" His hand rested gently on my arm,
"I am afraid so. He doesn't have much more time. Maybe it is time to say goodbye." His eyes were sympathetic and his voice tender. I nodded because I did not trust myself to say another word.
"Why did you go away Dad?" I asked on a day just a few months before. "Why did you leave us?"
"I know you will find this hard to believe Chanti but I had no choice sweetheart. I had to leave you but I thought about you every day." he answered, his eyes pleading for understanding. My relationship with my dad began the day of our meeting and continued for over a year before I found out that he had terminal cancer. He had damaged his liver irreparably from the drinking and doctors believed this is what had triggered the cancer.
His greatest desire was to be reconciled to my brother Rupert but Rupert stubbornly refused to see him in spite of all my pleading. He could not get over his own hurt at what he saw as his father's abandonment. When I found out that our father was dying, I tried once more to convince him but he responded with, "I have no father. In my mind he is already dead. Good riddance!" I could not believe his anger and felt it like a knife turning in my chest. When my dad asked, I told him as gently as possible that Rupert would not be coming to visit. His mouth twisted in agony and I watched helplessly as his shoulders shook with mute sobs.
I was not with him the day he died. The phone call came as a shock even although I had been expecting it. The days after his death passed in a blur. He had made certain requests about how he wanted to go. His first request was that he be cremated and that there would be no memorial service. He said to me during one of our last chats,
"For heaven's sake don't cry Chanti. It's a happy moment and I don't want one of those memorial services. Just cremate me and sprinkle my ashes on the 18th hole of the Parkhurst golf club. That hole was always the death of me." and then he chuckled. I nodded through my tears. There were so many tears in those final days but there was also a lot of laughter. Who would have thought we could laugh knowing that soon he would soon die? We shared so much in that short time. Serious moments, argumentative ones but mostly loving moments because we knew we had so little left and oh how we laughed and laughed.
"Chanti, you are your father's daughter" he grinned at me after a particularly intense verbal duel. This was the greatest compliment he could have given me.
I wasn't going to let him go without a memorial service. This was one time he would not get his way. We had the memorial service at Doves and Wilmot funeral home. I sat alone in the front of the small chapel. The place was filled with so many strangers but I felt alone in my grief. I looked at the coffin and thought about his tall frame occupying that space. My mind didn't want to accept that I would never see him again, never hear his voice and listen to his infectious laugh. The organ music started up and I remember thinking that my Dad would have hated the sombre tone. I had this insane desire to giggle then because I could imagine his reaction to it all. Suddenly I felt someone sitting down to my right and grasp my hand. I looked up and into the eyes of my brother, Rupert. His face so like my father's caused my heart to constrict but I smiled at him and mouthed a grateful thank you.
I saw tears gleaming in his eyes.[/size][/color]
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