Father’s goodbye to his Son

This story thanks to the North West Indiana Times © Copyright 2008, The Times, Munster, IN, USA

As reprinted in the Sikh Review.org Written by: Hardarshan S. Valia, Ph.D.* President, Coal Science Inc. 2046-44th St. Highland, Indiana. 46322. USA. Email: [email protected]

My mind could not grasp the words coming from the telephone.

"Your father has two hours to live. Come soon!" I had just landed at Delhi airport on a flight from Chicago, eager to visit my ailing father. I’d dialed the hospital in Meerut, where I knew my father had lain for the last 14 days. The grim tone in Dr. Mittal’s voice gave full scope of the impending storm associated with the death of a father.

"Can I make it?" I wondered, running through the crowded airport, finally hailing a designated cab, telling the driver to hurry. "Can I make it?"

"I must!" I told myself, the taxi throttling at full speed.

The highway loomed ahead, cars and trucks and busses whizzing by.

I looked at my watch. Nine p.m. Yet depending upon the traffic conditions a car journey to Meerut takes two to three hours.

I could not take the chance. I knew in my heart: I must tell my dying father his son is here so we both can say "Goodbye." The taxi driver blew his horn, weaving in and out of lanes while I dialed my sister. "Place the phone receiver next to father!" I asked.

How could my father hear my words? At 92, his hearing had been gone for years. Life-support machines surrounded him, beeping, buzzing and keeping him alive.

Still, I swallowed, hard, then spoke slowly, loudly.

"Greetings, Father! Kaka has arrived!" I repeated the words at least 20 times, each time more clearly, to help them make it across the wires, across the miles, to penetrate my father’s heart.

It was then I heard my sister’s voice speaking on the phone from beside my father’s bed.

"Tears are rolling from his eyes!" she said.

I pleaded with the driver already doing his best to navigate through Delhi’s nightmarish traffic.

"Please, driver! Drive faster!" I looked at my watch when we reached the Meerut hospital. Eleven p.m.

I ran to my father’s room to see his frail body, so small beside the life-support machines.

I bent down, to kiss his forehead. I held his hand within mine. I touched his cheeks. I tried to open his half-opened eyelids.

He did not respond. He did not move, except for his left eye, which seemed to be wet. Machines beeped, almost in time to the irregular curves and waves appearing on their screens.

After 1 1/2 hours, the machines stopped. Silence.

A soul had taken leave from its bodily abode. My father had lived a life of high morals, never compromising his principles as he struggled on life’s battlefields. This, of course, had been his last battle: to say goodbye to his son.

Yes! My father kept death at bay until he had finished his last earthly task.

I saw him kneeling from his horse, surrendering his weapon, slowly walking away. When he turned his head, he heard me, his son, cheering from the sidelines, "Well done, father!"

My father’s name is Santokh Singh. He was a railway employee of South Eastern Railway. His story is the stuff of true legends, of true history, not written on the walls of City Hall but on the footsteps of other fathers before him. Fathers like my father who, since the dawn of civilization, conquered life’s adversities so their children could pursue and conquer dreams.

Hardarshan S. Valia is president of coal science Inc. in Highland.

The opinion expressed in this column is the writer’s and not necessarily that of The Times.