This Father

 

 

This father was a good father,

a man alive with many unrealized dreams.

He grew up in India and went

to boarding school in Shimla.

When he was fourteen, he and his family

moved to London, and weeks later,

his own father died suddenly.

He started working right away

as he had four siblings and a mother

with brown skin who lived before in India

with servants, a cook and a nanny.

When he landed his first job at a newspaper,

he ran home and yelled with unharnessed exuberance,

“Ma, the sky’s the limit!”

 

This father went to war in Korea,

he boxed and he cooked and he didn’t know

if he ever killed someone as he shot his gun

but couldn’t see what or who he was shooting at.

 

This father was paralyzed on half of his face

from a childhood illness, so he knew what it was

to be outcast, to never quite belong.

 

This father had a father who was an English solider,

conducting trains through the Indian terrain.

He gave coal for free to those who needed it

and prayed every day for God’s grace and protection.

 

This father had a mother who he loved

and honoured as someone sacred, to be cherished.

She was of Indian descent, an unwavering Catholic

and a mother of six, as she lost a child, a little girl

who she still dreamed of every night,

even when she reached eighty years.

 

This father moved to Canada and became

a journalist. He won awards and a University scholarship.

He wanted to write novels, so he and his wife and two children

went to Spain for a year, and he wrote. When he got home

he would wake up every morning at 4 a.m., typing,

creating plots, revising plots. After he faced a few rejections,

he gave up his dream, promising to return to it when he retired.

 

This father never retired but died suddenly at sixty-two.

When he was in his early 50s, his older brother died, it was

one of the few times he cried. He felt sorrow and he felt guilt.

He said – It should have been me.

 

This father read many books, at least ten a week.

He would go to the library each Friday and

a new pile of books would sit on a table by the front door.

 

This father recited memorized Shakespeare

at the dinner table and old poems that rhymed.

His booming voice, as dramatic and engaged

as a stage performer.

 

This father took his children to many classes.

He would sit and wait and read in his car

for hours, waiting while his daughter

took acting, figure skating, and his son,

hockey. When I was young, he carried me

on his shoulders, he held my hand often

and would gaze at me frequently with loving pride.

 

This father worked

as an editor for a major newspaper.

He was good at his job, respected in his job,

and gave it his all, but he was never satisfied.

For this father had an ever-erupting

anger in him, energy that stirred wildly

and never rested even when he tried to

quash it with drink.

 

This father loved children,

and they loved him, gathering around

his story-telling magnetic sphere. This father never

got to be a grandfather as he died too young.

 

This father had great depth

and even greater generosity.

 

The same year his own mother died

and just days before he died,

(although he didn’t know he was going to die),

this father sat me down

and told me that he was finally at peace,

with his life, with himself. That finally

he forgave himself for being who he was.

And I know life was hard for this father,

that he was always living

with an internal raging war,

but this father was such a good man,

missed and admired on a grand scope.

At his funeral, one after another

came to me to tell me so, that

which meant so much, and I already knew.

 

This father was perfect to me, for me

he was the sun – untouchable strength,

aggressive existence, but so giving,

so protecting, so warm.

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2026

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Synchronized Chaos” October 2026

https://synchchaos.com/poetry-from-allison-grayhurst-18/

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You can listen to the poem below:

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