I was at a stop light watching a child who couldn’t have been older than four years old.

She was holding on to her father’s hand and hanging, legs and arms limp, then swaying, pulling, dropping her bottom back and her feet up, but never falling, occasionally looking up at her father and laughing in that way which only children can manage so casually.

The honest one that comes from deep inside their tummies.

She believed that grip was the only thing in the world she required to make her happy and safe.

I watched this little girl knowing that my father is the wall which protects me from the winds, the floor which protects me from the mud, and the roof which protects me from the rain. Once we become parents, the onus rests squarely on our shoulders to be the protectee rather than the protected. Recently, I have wished and prayed that I possessed the ability to be the reflection of this to him, but I could not; as his daughter, I will ever be swinging on his hand laughing.

Selfishly, I sometimes wish I could pass before my parents as I am incapable of understanding a world without them. And I guess this is where Faith kicks in strongest. Today, my parents too are children hanging and swinging from the hand of God…which is where I will eventually be, once they have crossed the bridge into Truth.

I love you, baba.

RIP Poppa Lloyd Wilson; may God’s embrace and mercy be all that our collective imagines it to be, multiplied by a million.

———-

Comments closed.