Father’s Songs

“I think that Father loved his animals more than he loved his family. Maybe that is why he chose to live in the sheds with them throughout the year. I wonder, was he not cold with them? Mother would send all the flour he needed: corn, millet, and barley. When he passed by the village to collect ropes and other paraphernalia for this animals, Mother would plead with him to stay and ask him to sendsomeone else to look after the animals. But he never listened to her troubles. When I was two years old, he took me with him. He had said, “I am going to take this one to the shed. If I let her stay with you, you will make her work all day when she grows to be able. I will take care of her, feed her and when she is big enough for school, I will send her back.” Mother was not happy with his decision, so she would have one of the family members visit the shed every few days to see if Father was taking good care of me. I have little memory from those days, but I remember Father humming as he put me to sleep every night beside the fire he made. For six years, I stayed up in the moors with father and his animals. When I turned 7 or 8, he sent me back to the village so that I could start going to school. So I did. Maybe father did not want me to get married young like the other girls in the village who were forcefully sent away by their parents. However, my school days were short-lived. When I was in the 7th grade, I had to leave school because some of Father’s animals had died due to some disease, and he could not afford to send me to school. And for me too, my days were spent doing what women did in the village. I am married now, and I have a son. I do not want the hard life of my father for him. I have sent him to Kathmandu so that he can be educated so that he does not have to waste his life on animals. Father has passed away, and I know that he would have wanted school for his grandson too. I miss my father; it has just been three years. Every time my son is back home for vacation, and when I am putting him to sleep, I find myself humming the same sound that father would hum to me every night when he put me to sleep.”