A Father's Love

The other day, I sliced a tomato into eight sections, and took the tough end out with a sharp knife. As I was doing this, I wondered why I liked tomatoes so much, often eating it plain and raw. A picture slowly came into view, a pair of hands with very long fingers, working delicately and slowly, with care and resolve, over a tomato over a small bowl. These were my father’s hands.

Every summer, mother bought heirloom tomatoes from the market. In the 1970s in China, fruits were expensive, and some like watermelon, was rationed every so often. But vegetables were cheap; anyway, the government decided the prices. However, it wasn’t easy to get vegetables, as pretty much everything was in short supply. Years later, residing in the US, I read with amusement that foreign diplomats learned the words “Mei You”, meaning “don’t have” in Chinese as soon as they stepped on Chinese soil during that period. Mother got up early everyday, and was at the market before its opening at 6:00 a.m.

Father always moved slowly, and did everything in a delicate and through manner. Father would coax me into eating a tomato. He first poured hot water from a thermos into a bowl, immersed a tomato into the hot water, then watched and waited. After a few minutes, he picked up the tomato, and pinched up the tomato skin with the fingernails of his right thumb and his right index finger. He worked at it ever so lowly, as if he didn’t want to lose a spec of the tomato other than the skin, and as if he would be judged by the smoothness of the surface after the peeling. Upon inspecting that every bits and pieces of the skin was off, father carefully put the tomato back into the empty bowl, and delicately laid a thin coat of sugar over it. “Te Dar”, father had the perfect fruit for me on a hot summer day. During the most difficult economic time in China, father knew how to lure me with an attractive, sweet and juicy fruit, a red tomato wearing a snow-white coat.

As I took small bites into the sweetened tomato, father’s face lightened up with a satisfying smile. It was a mission to him to see me enjoying my food and nourishing my growing body. Father was much happier than me watching me eating the tomato, as if the juice running through his heart was sweeter and tastier than the tomato pieces dropped into my belly. A father’s love is the alchemy.

Looking at the tomato in front of me on the cutting board, I came to a realization that I had never handled a tomato with care and precision like my father. I started to question whether it was too violent the way I cut through the flesh with a knife swiftly and mindlessly. At a deeper level, I asked myself whether I practiced proper love and care for myself.

Life follows neither the book of love and kindness, nor the book of fairness and justice. I experienced the most tragic loss, hence, profound suffering. Even years later, tears streamed down my eyes when I thought of what was going through my father’s mind hearing my tragedy thousands miles away in China. I was born at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, a very difficult time in modern Chinese history. Father lived on bare necessity, deprived himself of all pleasures, in ensuring that I grew up as healthy, happy and educated as he could possibly afford, with his meager earnings but infinite love. If I were a tree, father was the gardener. He cared for me with the utmost love and gentleness, from a seedling to a young tree. He released me with the confidence that I was strong enough to endure the weather and to face the ups and downs.

Yet, there are times the storm is so ferocious that trees are toppled. I lasted out the human tragedy with almost all branches striped off my trunk. When the goings gets tough, I think of my father and my father’s love. To not to care and love myself properly is to revolt against my father and his love.

For it was my father’s heart and soul, I came to be me today. To honor my father’s love, I will keep at it, whether to skip in a flower garden, or to bush whack on a rugged mountain.