A few days ago, an old friend asked me if I was open to writing a letter to my father. They said they just got this feeling that Papa wanted to hear from me. Now, since I journal daily, it wasn’t as much as a stretch as the person feared. I assured them that writing to my father sounded like a great idea and not strange at all. And so I wrote to Papa, mostly expressing guilt and regret for not expressing how far we had come in our relationship, how we were healed, yet I would let some parts of it go, my go to expression with him usually irritation or dismissiveness. But we also had a lot more real moments, a lot more ability to tell each other we loved, with him giving me kissings and blessings any chance he could.
It was a short letter, owing to my hand cramping and my bad handwriting, but satisfying as it felt different from my usual journalling which is mostly me going over things to do, random thoughts. After that, I got lost in the day, and later on in the evening I decided I wanted to get rid of my extra comic books that I’d discovered in my garage. Sunday seemed like the perfect day to do long pending errands, and as I took out the boxes, I saw a red photo album with my name on it. For a moment, I thought it was one that me or my wife had done for each other, but this one had actual photos in it, and then my wife reminded me that Papa had made that album for me.
Goosebumps flew through me as I paged through the album. In it were old photos of me from birth, junior and high school, college, my trip to India with another friend, and I got lost in those memories. Papa had even saved my vision plan on what I intended to accomplish by the time I was 35. I am pretty sure I was 30 when I wrote, and it was a reminder of what a different path I had taken. The path that Papa really wanted me to take all long, that of being a lawyer. The album felt like an answer to my letter. Sure, it could be coincidence, but it definitely was surreal to find it on the day I wrote him a letter after being told by a great friend to do so.
Regardless, it was also a reminder to keep on my legal tasks and to keep growing my firm. Happy Monday!
Sanjay Sabarwal's Blog 