Dad

I knew it before the phone rang.

?The tar was melting in the driveway of a sweltering July day in 1991. My eleven month old son was balanced on my back as I lay face down while we watched a Giant preseason game on a television set I could not afford.

?“your father is no more”

?The words came across haltingly in the 1991 of transcontinental communication. The caller was my fathers secretary. I had last spoken to him in May when he requested that “I keep up the fight.” I agreed not knowing what the fight was but knew that if I said I would he would feel better, that the latter years in his life had purpose. He made the same request of my sister. She agreed as well.

?We had not spoken much in the four years since he left the country after his mother passed away in 1987. In the meantime his youngest daughter had graduated from high school and was now attending college. His older daughter was an accomplished programmer in artificial intelligence three decades before the world would learn of the phrase. I had passed through the portals of Parris Island, South Carolina, Camp Geiger, North Carolina, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Citibank, a derivative software startup, and was a one lot Canadian Dollar legend in the basement of a townhouse that I could afford less than the television set we were watching.

?The last time I had seen my father in 1987 was as a passenger in a Toyota Starlet that I drove at a speed it was not designed to maintain because he was late for the flight to India and his mothers cremation. As we careened across the NJ Turnpike and Outerbridge Crossing to JFK his 6 foot 250 pound frame hung on for its life though not without a glint of appreciation for our abandon.

?The next time I would see him in 1991 was after pulling him from blocks of ice in a New Delhi food storage locker where I had insisted his body be preserved until I could claim it and have an autopsy performed. There in the back of a half ton Army carrier arranged by my mothers brother, who was ten years junior to my father in the same regiment, I sat across from his body draped in a white sheet accompanied by my cousin and mothers other brother, a talented designer who discussed his open heart surgery displaying the scar.

?What did he miss in the last 33 years?

?He has seven grandchildren. Four boys and three girls. The boys and one of the girls are mine and the other two girls are from his youngest daughter. She married a sober midwesterner who went on to a career as an economist at the World Bank. My children are the offspring of a Lithuanian Jew, Welsh, Church of England mix (2), A Dutch, Italian Catholic (1), a Persian Muslim, and a Sumatran. I think he would have enjoyed the genetic adventure.

?Two of his grandsons are exceptional golfers. After I landed in Delhi to claim his body I went to the Army Golf Course to collect his clubs and play a round of golf. I left the country before the family and asked my mother to bring the clubs with her. She forgot.

?His youngest grandson started his career at the Air Force Golf course in Delhi where my father had driven the Queen and Nehru in 1961. The course was inaugurated by his best friend, my godfather, an Air Chief Marshal in 1991.

?I started the game in my 40’s, won a team event, represented the country in 2005, returned to win individual events, and qualified for my pro card on the Asean Seniors Tour in Thailand. But my accomplishments in the sport were not for me but to create a foundation for the next generations.

?His oldest grandson has the ability to play professional golf but not the time because of his career.

?His youngest grandson is an all District player in Texas after growing up in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and now America. He has an exceptional work ethic to match an ability that he was born to.

?Not sure how this universe thing works but I am sure if he can he is watching with a smile on his face and a gin and tonic in his hand.

?The grandchildren are all stateside and will make the best of it.

?Thanks for the shot

?God Bless.