Dishes

It’s amazing how we as humans can remember with agonizing clarity the things that we most desperately wish to forget. In my mind, I see my father. Bent over a cardboard box, the tears drip down his face, washing the bowl he holds in a salty bath of pain. His hands tremble - the control he has over them is weakening. Even as his knuckles whiten, he still tries so valiantly to be gentle. He has already packed his clothes and his bathroom necessities into boxes and suitcases. The kitchenware he saves for last. And yet, as he carefully handles those dishes, with the perfectionism that was, and still is, so much of who he is, I see him cry as I have never seen him cry before.

I remember, weeks before, a family meeting where our hearts were shattered. Baba announced quietly that he was moving out. My strong, dependable father’s voice shook and broke. My younger brother started to cry, too young to fully comprehend the situation, yet understanding that this meant the death of something precious. In spite of his own heartache, Baba reached out and drew him into a tight embrace - for his own pain could wait, couldn’t it? He rocked him on his lap, back and forth, whispering, sobbing, that it wasn’t his fault… it wasn’t anyone’s fault, he said.

And now, as he wraps each piece of dinnerware in layers of newspapers, rivulets of wetness mark his cheeks. He cries for the failure he thinks he has become. He cries for the vanished chance to see his children grow up. He cries for the loss of a place to call home. He cries as I squat in the corner, at a loss for what to say, what to do. I want to tell him that he hasn’t lost us at all. I want to cry out that I am still here. Baba, can’t you see me? And I am ashamed because amidst all those longings I still want to turn away, to not see him cry, not feel the pain that radiates from him. It would be so much easier. I am only eleven.

Later, though the pain from that memory faded, I could still recall the rawness of my father’s tears and the way he looked as he cried goodbye to his home. He would have been saddened to know that we stopped using bowls and chopsticks. Instead, we used plates and forks, but every so often, when we gathered for dinner, I would look at the place where he used to reign and remember what it was like – way back then. My heart’s cries grew faint over the years, but on quiet winter nights, when I lay in bed, I could still listen to the murmurings and make out what they had to say; a silent testimony for the aching wound of my family. Wordlessly, as days turned into months and months into years, my pain scabbed over and I survived.

That was the state my Heavenly Father found me in. I was bitter, wounded, and burdened with too many un-cried tears. Gently, He worked His way through my defenses and called me to His side. There, I stood and looked with timid amazement at my current place in life. I was surrounded by broken relationships, broken promises, broken hopes. I began to despair as my gaze finally landed on my scattered family. Why, Lord? Why did it end up like this? Softly He replied, Do you hear your laughter? Do you feel your parents’ love? Can you see now, the joy that grew from sorrow? Nobody ever left you, nothing died that did not return. I was there all along.

The pain and the tears of my family have never gone away. Now, though, I can see through that to the smiles, the blessings, the love. My heart’s voice is not of anguish any more but of peace. Storms no longer have the ability to capsize me. Instead, I hold fast to the truth that I am in good hands and that those hands will guide me along the right path. That truth beats steady in my heart, comforting and breathing life -

God is here. God is here.