Prena Poetry

my first born was seven when she asked me if i could teach her swimming, i shortly pulled my head away from the computer screen and instead told her she was too young for swimming. she would often hover around my workspace, slide into my arms or misplace the notes on the desk. i never really had time to observe the pretty little mischievousness she threw around, the MMST boards were nearing and i worked 12 hours shift at the hospital, then by the time i got home it was always too tiring. my wife and i had everything planned, how we would enroll our daughter into the country’s top prestigious school and perhaps put up a summer house on the land i owned at phobjikha. we were a happy family, my wife understood the sacrifices my profession required and she on the other hand was willing to deeply compromise for our future. soon, i had to travel to india for a year for some medical training the government had sponsored. a week before the flight, my daughter again asked me if i could take her swimming, i sweetly told my child i was too busy preparing for the program and promised that i would take her to swim after i returned home. she hugged me and i clearly remember how she said ‘dad, you are a good doctor’. i got home after a year, i got all sorts of presents for my wife and child. that night, as we were having dinner with other medical officers and their families, my daughter ran up to me and pointed at the wall where i had my degree and many other achievements framed. she told me ‘dad, i will also put up my certificate there one day’. everyone complicated her for inheriting my brilliancy. work got busier, and my time was cut down to barely having dinner with family. my daughter often asked me if i would be free on the weekends to take her swimming, however as the weekend came there was always new surgeries or emergency cases piling up. it was a chaotic period, my wife was 8 months pregnant with twins, and my mother was terminally ill; hooked on to ventilation and heavy painkillers. i had to swing from one wing of the hospital to another, then to home and to my bed ridden mother. it took all of my time, sometimes i wouldn’t even see my daughter for 2 to 3 days. but she was a good child, that’s what i heard from her school teachers who had appointments with me. she would often hang her paintings of oceans or waterfalls by door, she wanted me to see them and i only told her they were beautiful. we welcomed our twin boys a week after my daughter’s 12th birthday but soon enough i lost my mother at the hospital bed. the funeral was quick and small, there were some relatives and monks my wife had called over and it didn’t even feel that painful, we had been long preparing for that day.

time slipped by rapidly, my twins were almost 2, i was promoted and paid wonderfully, and we had just shifted to a bigger house. then one sunday morning, my daughter asked me to drop her off for her class picnic, i was hanging up my frames so instead my wife drop her. it was a beautiful afternoon, i had finished putting up my frames and was having a tea while my wife was feeding the twins some fruits. everything felt miraculously fine, the life i had dreamt and worked for was right infront of me now. that warm contentment felt like it was going to last forever until i received a call from my daughters phone. i picked up and asked how the picnic was going but there was someone another on the other end of the phone. the voice was breaking up badly then all at once i shattered inside when the voice said ‘sir, your daughter is at the hospital’. i rushed to the hospital, it felt like the world was spinning mad and i couldn’t even hear my wife running behind me. i made it to the emergency ward, and there was daughter was on bed 1, the other doctors and paramedics around the bed came towards me saying they were sorry but everything felt as though it was spinning a thousand miles per hour. and for the first time the machines, the beeping sounds and all those white blankets and frenzy of hospital workers felt entirely bizzare. i could only stare at my daughter, her hair and clothes drenched with water dropping from her cold blue finger tips. i couldn’t remember when it was the last time i hugged her, now she was horribly cold and i was hugging her body, and wailing in the own lack of my breath. my daughter only ever wanted was me to teach her swimming, and now i had lost her to drowning.

i lost my control, i was hysterical to the point that i don’t remember what all medical procedures i performed in madness or what i screamed at the people around until my wife pulled me back and told me it was time to let her go. her eyes were solemnly red in tears, and i was horribly shivering in her arms, i couldn’t even utter a word to her. in all these years i had announced so many deaths, acted entirely sane to let go of my dearest patients and right now, it was my wife who stood stronger to let go of our daughter. i cried, i cried for a week almost every night, and depended on antidepressants for months and months. maybe because the guilt was also as big as the loss of my own child. every night, every morning, i thought of all the times, when my daughter would say i was a good doctor but as far as i could recall i never remember her saying that i was a good father. and now i only wish i could have been a father good enough.