Today is Fathers' Day. It is a holiday which I used to cherish, but in recent years I have come to dread it despite being a father myself. My parents had a rather messy divorce 4 years ago, and I had not spoken to my dad until last fall- hence my dread of this holiday until recently. During those 3 years when we were not speaking, I convinced myself of several things: 1) I was extremely busy and had no room for family drama 2) I could make it on my own without a father in my life 3) My father needed to make the first move to repair our frayed relationship. Then, I came to realize the foolishness of all these excuses. It happened the day Tim Russert, one of my other heroes, died last year. With all of the tributes to Mr. Russert after his death, I was reminded of the importance and power of fathers in our lives, whether they are absent or present. I reached out to my dad after that event, and we had spoken on a few occasions. The last time we spoke was after the election of President Barack Obama. My father, a political junkie through-and-through and yellow dog Democrat who had been a Canadian citizen despite having lived here for 25 years, had become a US citizen last year... just in time to cast his first ballot for then candidate Obama. We bonded over his victory and looked forward to what would come next.. both for our country and (though unspoken) for our relationship. That was 7 months ago, and we had not spoken since.
I have come to realize after my own kids' birth that love is something that is unconditionally given to a child by a father or mother from birth. However, love is a bond that, when severed, is not easily repaired. I am not saying that it is irreparable, but its restoration takes work, effort, and time, none of which neither my dad nor I had put in. When I look at my two children and see how they, particularly baby Cate, smile at me, I see love in their eyes. I see admiration. I want to feel that again about my dad because he is probably the most important person whom I have ever known (no offense intended to my mom). He, at the age of 20 or so, came to the United States, to Wisconsin of all places, to study at the University of Wisconsin and at Marquette. He would then return to India and marry my mom through an arranged marriage. He was not satisfied to stay in India after the opportunities he had seen in the West, but he knew the path to immigration to the U.S. was long and fraught with delays and heartbreak due to the fact that it was and still is the prime destination for millions like him. Thus, he moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere in Canada- Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to be precise, where it was much easier to secure a Visa. There, he taught in a technical institute and raised 3 kids with my mom.
When we grew older, he sensed that the opportunities that he had dreamed of for himself when he wished to settle in the U.S. might now be more of a possibility and might be realized by us. We moved to Oklahoma City, where my dad had a teaching position through which he was able to obtain a "green card" when I was in 6th grade. One year later, a better position came up in a better city, Austin, Texas. We lived in a suburb of Austin called Round Rock for 1 year and then moved to another suburb, which necessitated that I change schools again in 8th grade. By the time I started high school, I had been in 5 different schools in 5 years, and I was none to happy about all the moves. While, even in retrospect this was far from ideal, it was a minuscule sacrifice compared to what my father had given up not once but twice- a comfortable living and home first in India and then in Canada... all for us.
Whenever I have asked my father about why he came to the West and why he moved us to Texas, he always talked about opportunity, educational and financial... for us rather than himself. The best Canadian education was not good enough. He wanted us to get the best education and jobs in the world, American ones. He realized that the chasm between those who live without versus within America is wide, and he did not want us to have to make that journey alone as adults. He had traveled a much longer road than that himself, and, rather than view this challenge as Sisyphean, he wanted to scale those final, highest walls with us strapped to his back.
I do not think I would be the person whom I am today without both my parents' sacrifice and my father's vision. I certainly would not have dreamed, as a ten year-old boy when I left Canada, that I would have attended the University of Texas, Baylor College of Medicine, UT-Southwestern (where I would meet my future wife and mother of my kids), Johns Hopkins University, where I would see medicine and science at their finest, start my own laboratory at my current institution though I came to science so late in life, etc, etc, etc if it had not been for my father. It is not to say that I would not have been successful or happy, but I most certainly would not have the life or family I do now, which is pretty tough to beat.
When it came to time to select a Fathers' Day gift for my dad, I chose to order a copy of Dreams for My Father by Barack...a political olive branch, if you will. It seemed fitting because when I looked at my own children in the days leading up to Father's Day this year and thought of all my dreams for them, I was reminded of all my father's dream for me. I think I now have a better idea of what that title meant to Barack because my dad taught me many important things: food grilled at home comes in only one variety, "well done" (I have outgrown this one and am actually grilling some burgers, "medium-well" I hope, as I write this post) and, more importantly, one's greatest obstacles in life are one's self and the unwillingness to dream... big. Perhaps what it comes down to is this: having big dreams for my kids... dreams from my father.
