My Father's Fingernails

I believed that I had to die in order to stop suffering from the death of my father. I remember telling my future wife sometime after we had met that I wanted to die before my parents, refusing to suffer their loss. I probably only meant that for my father: the man who held my hand at less than three years of age when we disembarked from the boat that brought us to our new home, the man who always tasted the melon first before sharing it with his three remaining children and his wife, the man who let me enjoy the touch of his calloused hands and yellowing fingernails, the man who secretly ate the tasty homemade pastries and fresh seasonal fruits and blamed it on me when reproached by his domineering wife, the man who worked for the army and returned home early to take care of me, the man who knew how to cook a mean spaghetti, the man who taught me by example to seek peace and quiet, the man I painfully loved even when he became difficult to deal with following his drawn-out struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, the man whose smile could light up any room including his private one in the nursing home, the man I lost at the tender age of 89. Is this all I could remember of the forty years of having a father? No! It is only a simple synopsis of all those years, a broad overview of four decades, a would-be writer’s whimper.

*****

The source of my fundamental fancy for cats proved to be their claws. At first, I was only taken by their mechanical genius. I loved to watch them appear and disappear like lightening. I even imagined my hands equipped with such retractable claws. They represented a sixth sense for the cat, which I wished I had also possessed. The sheer power that they sported and the pain that they could inflict sent shivers along my slender spine. My mind was mesmerised by their perfection. When the cat was resting, I would press upon one of its frontal paws, thus triggering the appearance of its claws. I was, at least, able to pretend to be a cat at those memorable moments. I also groomed them. Although the cat did its best by sharpening them, I gave them the final touch. I removed all the grime that had accumulated around the covered upper part of each claw, thus revealing even more hidden power. This time around, I also discovered another fascinating aspect about them. Besides inflicting pain, their sharpness, carefully harnessed, could trigger pleasure. Apparently, I had found the tactile affection rarely received from my mother in this exploratory manipulation of the cat’s innate wealth in that domain. I had tried to get it from people before settling for cats.

I used to play with my father’s callused hands. I loved the sensation of his dry dead skin rubbing against my starving fingers. When I took my father’s less labouring left hand into my admiring right one, I would move my index finger against my father’s thumb, thus creating friction that produced pleasure. When my father was unavailable or unwilling, I would take anyone’s hand, be it the surprised neighbour or the mystified visitor. As long as I was youthful, I could get away with such an act. On the other hand, once a month, my father needed my help cutting the fingernails on his right hand. Like me, he was right-handed and had difficulty getting rid of that hand’s month-old yellowish nails. As a kid, I did not mind helping my father with that cleansing activity, but as I grew older and fonder of them, I had acquired an aversion for that monthly ritual. My father seemed to have understood his son’s dislike and had eventually learned how to do it by himself. I was glad that I no longer had to serve as the instrument of his nails’ demise.

*****

I knew the meaning of fingernail fatality firsthand. I started to bite my nails around the age of six, but I never swallowed them. I loved to use my teeth for that soon to be dreadful activity. When I was somewhat conscious of my admiration for them, I still could not stop my continuous nail biting. I found them to be extremely inferior to the cat’s claws and decided that if I could not have claws, I did not need nails, hoping that my biting would eventually turn them into claws. However, life had many other claws to offer and provide, as if anyone really wanted any of them, except for the annihilators of life in all its forms, who relished in their various executions. World War Two, and One too, and every other war, exemplifying claws galore.

*****

Taming of the Few: An Acrostic Sonnet

Thank you for your service in the new war

Against those who only perceive dry blood

Murder has been glorified as a score

Including in the kill-almost-all flood

No saints above and below lead away

Gaining any renown under the Sun

Over a day or a year doth betray

Failure to initiate a poor run

Taming of the few will never suffice

Hell has become larger than Heaven-cubed

Every proportion is far from precise

Falling and rising as life becomes lubed

Elementary particles doth beg

With those who still believe first was the egg

*****

I clawed thorough life following my father's demise, or departure as many seem to call or even consider it. He was hoping that he would go to Heaven before his dementia had ravaged his mind. I think that Earth could be Heaven instead of the hell that it has almost always been. I miss my father's fingernails and I never got my claws. I was only fortunate to experience the cats' and those that are included as we discover the ramifications of being alive. I lost my father very close to twenty years ago, but we never lose our fathers. They are almost always waiting for us in our memories.