David Chariandy - I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter

Copyright 2018 by David Chariandy

Hardcover edition published 2018

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Once, when you were three, we made a trip out for lunch. We bussed west in our city, to one of those grocery-store buffets serving the type of food my own parents would scorn. Those overpriced organics laid out thinly in brushed-steel trays, the glass sneeze guard just high enough for you, dearest daughter, to dip your head beneath it in assessing, suspiciously, the browned rice and free-range carrots. And in that moment, I could imagine myself a father long beyond the grip of history, and now caring for his loved one through kale and quinoa and a soda boasting real cane sugar.

But were both dessert people, a soda wont cut it, and so we shared a big piece of chocolate cake. Its good for you, you giggled. Chocolate cake is very, very good for you. You squirmed away as I tried to wipe your mouth, laughing at all of my best efforts. It was an ordinary moment. And an ordinary thirst was brought on by the thick sweet of the cake, and so I stood and moved towards the nearby tap to get us both a glass of water, encountering a woman on her way to do the same thing. She was nicely dressed, a light summer cream suit, little makeup, tasteful. We reached the tap at roughly the same time. I hesitated out of a politeness, and this very gesture seemed only to irritate her. She shouldered herself in front of me, and when filling her glass of water, she half turned to explain, I was born here. I belong here.

Her voice was loud. She meant to be overheard, to provoke agreement, maybe, although the people lunching around us reacted only by focusing harder upon their own bowls and plates. And you, my daughter, sitting closest, didnt understand, or else you didnt even hear. You were still in a moment of joy, your own laughter filling your ears, the dark frosting between your teeth, and so I decided. I waited patiently to fill our glasses. I walked carefully back to you, never spilling a drop. I sat. I might have tried to match your smile. I might have attempted once more to wipe your mouth, or asked you to take a sip of water to prevent dehydration, the latest foolish fear of parents like me. I dont remember. I sometimes find myself in this state during the course of an ordinary day. I was lost in thought and quiet, even after I caught your hand waving before my eyes. Your face now cross and confused. Hey, you asked, what happened?

Today, a decade later, we still find occasions to go out, just the two of us, although I know that what you sometimes need is space. Under your direction, we fixed up a room for you in the basement, painting the walls a specific shade of seafoam, adding better lighting, a twin bed with your first real mattress, and a door that, when the mood requires, can softly close. Against your brother, with whom you used to share a room. Against your parents. Against an intruding and perplexing world. Its normal for a girl at this age, this desire for privacy, some parents have told me, although Ive spent my whole life never taking for granted what is normal. Youre thirteen years old, this much is certain. This is your last year of elementary school, and this is also the 150th anniversary of the country in which we both were born.

You are a girl, but this again offers me little I can take for granted. When very small, you decided that you hated pink and also princesses, even the ostensibly modern ones with their conventional prettiness now super-powered. You refused to wear a dress, arguing it was a nuisance when cartwheeling and somersaulting. And today you remain a blur of motion, pure fierceness at the dojo where you train and spar with adults who tower over you. Recently, when we were in the kitchen together, a news story came on the radio about a man whose criminal charge was reduced from murder to manslaughter. Manslaughter? you said. But that sounds way worse than murder! I tried to explain that manslaughter involved someone being killed, but without conscious intent. Suppose a man tried to assault you, I began, but in defending yourself you punched him so hard that he fell back and cracked his head on the pavement and died. You werent deliberately trying to kill him, right? But that might be considered manslaughter even though it was an accident. You thought for a moment, nodding. I see your point, you said. That would be awful. But I wouldnt exactly call my punch an accident. I would call it forceful and correct technique.

Ive told this story to other parents, receiving smiles both real and markedly awkward, sometimes the laugh one gives when something is cute, but I know Ive never been successful in conveying its true meaning for me. When I was a boy your age, Im not sure if I could have expressed so easily my right to defend my body from harmnot only my right to physical safety but my right to acknowledge and push back against denigration of any sort, great or small. To witness you, my daughter, so physically confident in your body, is to be awed and also to wonder at how much your childhood differs from mine. Certainly you possess a worldliness that was unthinkable to me at your age. Youve had the opportunity to visit Europe and countries throughout North America, and you wish to see much more; you seem to have little of the anxiety I often feel about crossing borders and encountering new people in different spaces. You go to a French immersion school, not only because your mother, raised and educated in Quebec, wished this for you, but because I too hoped that you would not be trapped, as I am, in a single language. And yet the irony is that your very success has turned me into the imaginary immigrant parent I never thought I would be, proud of his daughters accomplishments in school, yet unable to help her with even her grade seven homework.