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Letter
To: My favorite father-in-law They say first impressions matters and I am certain our first impressions of each other were similar. We feared each other, we might even hate each other or at least have some animosity between us. About 25 years ago, we were introduced. I am this heathen boy trying to steal your only daughter out of your life. Immediately, you sat me down, stared fiercely into my eyes, and sized me up. Suddenly words were unsheathed and I suspect that I have made an adequate defense. Just as suddenly, the duel ended and I was allowed my wounded retreat. Not long after, I discovered that you hardly brought your family on vacations or afford them much in the form of luxury. You see, I was brought up with “good” Chinese upbringing that family is first and the respectable man provides for the family. It must have been foolish youth that allowed me to enter back into your home. And when I did, you hugged me. It might have been the first time an elder has ever hugged me. Elders in my family would typically acknowledge monosyllabic or nod after we greeted them in their formal titles. I think it was not long after then that I understood. Your initial defense was not for the physical possession of your daughter, perhaps not even as a guardian of her happiness. It was a spiritual sparring. You were protecting the Word and His influence in your daughter. Perhaps you have determined that I was completely non-threatening to lead her away from the faith. I like to believe, instead, that you have seen some potential in me to grow in the faith. Your neglect of your family, was amplified upon yourself. You live simply affording only rare lapses in your frugality. But you would spend abusively for the church local or overseas and for the spreading of the Word. All of your first impressions were lies, only that hug was honest. And so that is how we rebuilt our relationship one hug at a time. A few hundred hugs later, we were holding conversations that would meander from topic to topic. A thousand hugs was all it took to uncover how playful you were and discover this game we would share where you or I would banter sarcasms or trade adages or bible verses improperly applied where it would always end with your far away casted smirk while you conceded with a loudly proclaimed “yeah, yeah right”. But it only took two hugs, before one is confronted with your obsession with Christ. You enslave yourself to His Word, you toil to study the scriptures and to prepare its expression in words. Some Saturdays your excitement would escape, as you leak to us the title of tomorrow’s sermon. Some Sundays you would wax lyrical, as a sermon extends to a trilogy. But never would you stop. Never would you tire. The fact that others could is something you could never truly reconcile. Millions of hugs later, you have a grandson. And the love and joy you have for him was explosive. I knew I found your kryptonite. I schemed and dangled him over the waters and made you take a cruise, an actual real vacation to do nothing but for self leisure. By the second day, you were unreadable, but “joyfully bored” might be my best description of your experience. That cruise might have given you some insight into eternity, even with the Bible you must have smuggled into your luggage. In spite of which, your daughter and I plotted in the dark hours for your next vacation. Unfortunately, the Lord has other plans for you. I cannot remember when it was when we first learnt that He wants you home. I cannot recount what I felt or when was it an actual reality or one that I have accepted in my mind. Facts floated on a sea of tears as waves of emotions crash against my useless brain. I will not speak about this painful episode in hopes that memories would dull and replace them with a more merciful version of this period. But I do want to remember: each of our final hugs, holding you as tightly as I could without hurting you. Channeling that same ferocity of our first duel whispering as defiantly as I dared “I love you” as I falter in my ambition to keep you with me and you slip away and leave me in my wounded retreat. Bro Clement - Singapore |