A Fathers Death
I remember Dad taking me to this hill in Fiji and telling me to stay in the car. He walked over to this hill and broke down in tears.
This was the second time I had seen him cry.
If you knew my father he was a mans man and wouldn’t show his emotions in public or in private. He was a hard man to live with and often I would catch the wrath of his temper.
I believe I have been passed on with this trait.
When he got back into the car he said we are in Fiji to do good, return back to the motherland and give back. Finally we are here today to show my father what I have achieved and what I will do for him.
To Father
( A Letter Lost)
I had written to you
I know, you received my letter
Brother had found in your pocket
He told me later
I had spone of my love
And my coming marriage
About my course
And the length of its duration
With my coming
Many problems would cease
The life’s burden you carried
Will no ease
Will get rid of the poverty
I would be a doctor soon
The abundance of scarcity
Will be totally hewn
And life once again
Will be a boon
On question of your health
I had also dwelt
From new knowledge acquired
Diabetes was dealt
The restraints required
On smoking and weight to lose
Walk briskly
Buy good shoes
Do not eat salt
Your drinking must halt
Puris and fried food
Are really not good
These you should not eat
Also important is omission of meat
Keep you Anginine tablet
In your pocket all the time
Use it sublingually
When chest pain arrives
I had written to you of
The Loan you had contrived
To build a house
If with a wife I arrived
I know you had borrowed
Money for my education
For my travel and transportation
They tell me you had an attack
As soon as another son
Boarded the plane
It was massive
You died
Consciousness never regained
Can parting with son
Cause such massive grief
To many is beyond belief
You were fifity-two
When you passed away
I would have passed
A decade earlier
The by-pass surgery
And modern science
Has kept me alive
At fifty five
We all had blamed
You death
To smoking and food
And exercise not right
None of these
One can blame on me
Still suffering the same plight
For children the disease
Comes a decade earlier
Every new generation
The cardiac gene
Becomes peculiar
At fifty five now
I am older than you
My wisdom is
Perhaps of better hue
With experience in the art
Of medical science
I would have given you
Better advice
But when life is really
At its end for me
Vision is clearer
Better I can see
I realise that all is crap
About being clever and wise
Everthing is in God’s hand
This I have surmised
All I want to say
Before I depart
I love you Dad
With all my broken heart.
Nanku Prasad was Dr. Umanand Prasad father a man many people say I look like.
I still believe to this dad my dad blames leaving Fiji and studying medicine caused his father to pass away. I could see it in his eyes as he took me on a tour of the Fiji Islands that dad might have moved to Australia to start a new life but his heart always remained in Fiji.
