Dear Uma,
I hope my letters always find you well.
You took your first baby steps earlier this month, and the joy it brought me is beyond comprehension. Some say it's a delayed development, and that you should have stood up on your feet 2 months ago, but I don't really care. To me, it appears like you've got some lessons right, very early.
Better late than never.
Slow and steady, life is no place to hurry.
That said, you're growing up! You're beginning to learn; starting to recognize more faces and things than yesterday, every day.
Oh this is happening faster than I could handle!
You've changed a lot since your first birthday. You don't like climbing over my shoulders anymore. You have stopped giggling to my funny impersonations of characters you've never met, maybe it's boring, I should get creative. You don't let me kiss on your forehead anymore.
But it's not all gloom and doom. You have reminded me of my blessings in new and meaningful ways.
Lately, you've become daddy's girl. You keep coming to my workdesk climbing up my chair at least a dozen times a day, an amenity of work from home, for sure. You don't eat your food unless it's me feeding you. You get excited and jump with glee, when I come back from somewhere and open the door, after just a few minutes of course. You are doing things that I was told that I did in my childhood, which truly makes a part of my heart melt in joy. And it feels hard to even think, that this too shall pass, you might soon become something more different and I will be longing for all these to happen again.
That's what growing up does, Uma, like it or not. You will break our hearts at times, but in doing so, you will also have the opportunity to build them back up again with your well-being, growth, and prosperity. Over time, we will not only get used to this process, but also learn to cherish every moment of it.
I am enjoying every moment of you growing up, and while it happens, a part of me that was dormant, grows up too. As you stand up on your tender little feet, a me inside me, who has been asleep for a long time, rises and walks, holding your little fingers, into the future, where it hopes and hopes, that this will continue for a long time.
In this impermanent world, no one gets to stay the same, and yet in imagination, our souls longs for some moments to escape the passage of time. But it is when you leave one moment that you hold so dear, you get to discover another moment filled with surprise. How it turns out is all in our hands. I firmly believe that the future has an impact on your present moment; Time is not linear, but rather more like a spiral. Every decision we make, every action we take, sends ripples through the fabric of existence that echo throughout time and hits back at your past, which could be a present moment somewhere in time. When I chose to work from home 7 years ago, I unknowingly set in motion a chain of events that led me to the wholesome moments I cherish with you now. I seldom thought about getting married, let alone, fathering a child, but here we are and I don't think all these happened by chance. The future and the past are not separate, but intimately connected, and it is only by understanding this interplay that we can truly appreciate the power of our choices. And that's all for this letter Uma, grow up and bestow me the opportunity of being a good father, every passing moment.
Love,
Appa.
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