Today My Dad Turns 50

It’s always difficult to exactly define our relationship. The best way to sum it up cannot be explained in words, and neither is it so easy to see. You would have to catch the both of us unaware and candid in our natural states: I, surreptitiously sneaking a foot across the white-painted doorway of my room, and he—worn, tired, and hungry—just entering the house with his glasses slowly slipping down his head. And even then, the moment might be over so quickly that your human eyes would not be able to catch it; that by the time you blink to adjust to a more focused scene, time has resumed its normal operations, and I would be quietly reading in my room while he would have long disappeared into his own office. Sure enough, you would hear the report on CNN from the downstairs television not five minutes later.

Everyone is always fast asleep by then. The lights are always turned off, and the only bright source is my glowing computer screen. I always hear the soft little click of the door being turned before I do anything else. Quickly, I switch the screen off, grab my phone, and try to close my bedroom door before the garage door opens, letting him in. Sometimes I manage to get away without a word, sometimes not.

“Esa?”

Today he has caught me, and the elusive scene must take place. This isn’t new. I look over the wooden railing, down to his uplifted face where I can plainly see the weariness of seventy-plus hour workweeks and sleepless nights of constant worry, of caring for a family and paying the bills. But I also see his temper that simmered—boiled—after each argument, each lecture, each exchange passed between us; my hot, angry tears that inevitably appeared afterward; and the tentative returns to our late night, almost run-ins with each other.

Maybe I can say something different to him tonight, make my “goodnight” mean a bit more. He is still standing there looking at me. Perhaps he too, expects a little more from me this time. Or maybe he is so lost in thought, in his work, that I’ve again become some piece of decorative furniture in his house. I cannot tell what he’s thinking from here. And I should say something different tonight, if only to catch him off guard.

“Hi, Dad.”

And yet, in the end, I can’t. Something always holds me back. The usual response comes out of my mouth, and he stares at me for a second more before nodding and walking away, grunting slightly as he shuts the office door closed. Sighing, I eventually retreat to my room and attempt to sleep, the same image from tonight—every night, every night—burned into my mind: the hurt, the disappointment, and (yes, of course) the love etched on his face as he turned away from me. I pull the covers over my head. I’ll tell him later. There’s too much to say in that one little moment anyway. How do I tell someone how much I love him? Or how sad he can make me feel at times?

Once again, the precise essence of our relationship has eluded me, and I close my eyes and promise myself that I will definitely tell him someday, if not tomorrow night when I try again.