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When a man loves a woman

He loved her.
He might have been fifteen, maybe sixteen and she was one class above him. It wasn't because she was beautiful, or sexy or older. She was wild and he wasn't. But even that wasn't the reason why he loved her. He just did.
My dad loved her. He didn't sleep with her. Or maybe he did. Somehow to him it didn't matter. I don't even know whether he kissed her but I suspect he did. He wrote poems in French at that age and it netted him a French fiancée, not his beloved. She, his beloved,was wild and it netted her every guy she wanted.
He was drafted into the army, became an officer and continued to send his fiancée love letters. He fell sick. The sickness that to him defined his manhood, or took away from it. He was ashamed. He was my father and to me he was and still is, the epitome of manhood. If only he had known that it in no way lessened him as a man, he might not have cried.
The beloved, she still has all the letters, but she wont give them to me. They are the treasures I covet. The relics of the God of manhood.
He got sick and she married someone else. Someone not him. Father was a nice guy, a friendly guy. And so he married my mother. God knows why. It serves his greatness that I never quite figured out if he hated her. She hated him. She hated all men, and to this day shes till does. He was faithful, like a Man. She made his life hell,but he waited patiently.
My sister was sent off to Chicago and I was sent off to India.When I got back my mother complained about him shouting at her once. I gritted my teeth and grinned. She backed off. He should have smashed her teeth in, for all the hell she put him through. It was as if she read my mind, because she never breached the subject again. I didn't respect him for not doing what I had wanted him to do for 18 years. but I loved him for restraining himself. He was a father and he acted like one.
And so they got a divorce. A week later the beloved called my mother. She had had a divorce and had been thinking about Father for years. She knew he was married so she had waited until she couldn't take it anymore. My father later told me: "The doorbell rang, and I opened. She was there and I took her hand, and I never let go of it.
I met the guy who fathered her children once. I neversaw that gleam in dad's eyes, until I was there when he met him. They had been divorced for years by then, but I recognized the look in my fathers eyes. My father looked at him and shook his hands. The message was implicit but understood. I am taking your woman, I can take any woman I desire, because I am a man, and you are not.
A couple of days later father and I were sitting next to each other on the couch, sipping our coffee. My father turned to me and laughed and said: "He had a beard." I felt like crying and hugged him like a son would hug his father. I loved you daddy.
He had a heartattack and went to hospital. It took me all of 9 hours to get there. I was allowed to see him for half an hour. "Take care of Arna. And take care of your sister when I'm not here anymore. Will you?" I just looked at him and cried.
She was there when he died.He was lying on the bathroom floor. The paramedics couldn't get the lines in because his muscles had all tensed up. She was screaming at them to get him to a hospital. He had gone and they knew it, but she wouldn't accept it.
They say that when you die someone close to you will be guiding you at the end of a tunnel of light. It's the one reason I aint afraid to die.


posted by The artist formerly known as the Bulb. @10:23 edited by the fineartist,
(comment by Lori: hehehehe.Okay, use it or don't your choice....and don't go being pissed at me for horning in and changing things...I am a pushy chick sometimes, can be, sorry.Lori)

posted by The artist formerly known as the Bulb. @ 10:23 AM