Let her cry, I am here.
Struggles make you strong. Failures ask you to struggle more. But there is a time after failing and deciding to work harder when you don’t understand the reason for the failure and you feel clueless about everything around.
I wept for I was there and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to be strong, don’t we all do that at some point? Trying to be strong for no reason as if we have some iron ventricles and auricles! So naive of us.
After my intense pledge to not cry I got up to talk to Papa and discuss life with him. He was in his room, sleeping peacefully when I barged in. He looked at me and smiled. I went and snuggled beside him. I made him awake. I started to talk about random things like life, my goal and I don’t know what all that looked like some blabbering of a child.
He gently stroked my hair and asked,” Should I believe that you have come here to discuss all these things with me right now? I would be quite disappointed if you say a yes, my sleep is precious if you don’t know.”
He knew that with puffy eyes and a runny nose, no one goes and hugs someone to discuss life. I started crying for I couldn’t handle the overwhelmed set of confused emotions in me. I let myself free. I sobbed around him and he didn’t say a word. Hearing me sob, Maa came rushing and enquiring things.
“Why are you crying? Grown-ups don’t cry like this. Don’t act like a baby!” she said.
“If you don’t remember she is still our baby. And let her cry, I am here. You may go, I will handle her”, he told her. She left us and I was still weeping near him.
I wondered how he does that! How he never judges me. He just lets me be myself. My lack of discipline might annoy him at times but he always stands by me. We fight a lot on various things and we always agree to disagree. Still, I love how he allows me to fall, fly, run, cry, and wander without stopping me.
“This world is not your dream world. Don’t expect it to be fair and welcoming. It’s a tough place to be. Now, don’t start with your feminism speech and claim that if you were a man things would have been better! The world is hostile to all, it doesn’t give any concession based on a gender. Don’t always hope things to be your way.” he said.
“You don’t know why am I crying, Do you? How can you say all this without even knowing what I am going through?” I asked.
Smilingly, he patted me and said,” I don’t know them. I know you. These tears made me realize how weak you feel at this moment. My little woman is doubtful about herself, her strength and I feel like making you realize that you are stronger than what you are facing today. We all try, fail, try again then succeed at last. This is not so hard to understand, is it?”
“Whatever it is, cry it off here. It ends today. Tomorrow is when you should try more not cry more. And if you don’t know, you look pretty with that red nose and fluffy cheeks,” he laughed.
I hugged him tighter listening to him whine about the importance of crying with a tissue so that you don’t mess up the other person’s cloth with your tears and runny nose. Who bothered!
