Chilli plant in a bathtub

“And the memories bring back, memories bring back you…”

Maroon 5 (Memories)

Chilli plant? In a bathtub? Let me begin by telling you a story…

There was once a daughter-in-law. Young, and despite an inherently docile nature, rather stubborn and fiery, if instigated, and also very sensitive. When she got married about 14 years ago into a strange new family, having led a very sheltered life so far, she had to face new people and new challenges, one of which was a not-so-easy relationship with her father-in-law.

It wasn’t that she had not been warned. Maybe just a couple of days after she entered this new house, her sister-in-law, who had been married in the family for a few years before her, gave her some quick advice. What she said proved prophetic.

Mother-in–law and father-in-law (the latter known by all as “daddy”) are both nice people, but there will be those minor, day-to-day issues, nothing big, but minor, irritating issues. You have to deal with them. And one thing, always remember – daddy is the mother-in-law in this house.

She perhaps did not understand the full import of her sister-in-law’s words, nor did they make much sense to her, until the sparks started to fly. If she needed anything, she was usually too shy or maybe too proud to ask it of daddy directly. This would hurt his large-sized ego, and his complaints would in turn hurt her. In her confidence she thought she could handle anyone and anything. But it turned out, not him. The first few days and weeks went by with one storm too many. She would “hate” him, as she would tell her father, who would counsel her to be at least mindful of him being more than double her age.

Things changed when she had her first baby. This was when she first saw the soft side of daddy, who transformed into the most loving grandfather, showering his new grandchild with everything she could need and also sometimes being the only one who could soothe her. He was also always the first to get her things they did not even know the child would graduate to – her first Lego set, her first Beados, her scootie (which her younger brother still runs) and lots more. She had to only say she needed something, and old as he already was, he would rush to the market and procure it like magic. One of these was a cream-colored Mothercare baby bathtub, which became a prized possession, also used by the baby brother, born three years later.

By then of course Daddy was older, with a bed-ridden wife to look after, but who loved the company of his first ever grandson (the other three are granddaughters) and often got into loving fist fights with him. He still “controlled” the house. Anything you needed, you had to ask daddy. Still.

Then came the illness that changed everything. One day her husband asked daddy why he had started walking so slowly, with his head bent. He laughed it off saying it was just old age. But soon whatever this was (a neurological condition, largely undiagnosed, probably Parkinson’s ++) seemed to take over everything, all his muscles slowly, and then even his lungs, until one day in July 2018 that she was unlikely to forget in her life, he had to be rushed into hospital with low oxygen.

There he remained for over two months fighting through episode after episode, after each of which his family thought they’d lost him. But a great fighter, he seemed to come out of them all. When breathing through tubes became difficult, he had to have a tracheostomy, which took away his voice, but gave him relative stability for over two years, on and off the ventilator he had at home, with a very dedicated male nurse who still serves him to this day. A week ago however daddy slipped into unconsciousness. Busy with her own problems and challenges over the last six months, she had taken his presence for granted. Where she used to meet him weekly, she had stopped stepping out due to Covid.

So yes that daughter-in-law is me, now 14 years older and perhaps wiser than I was back in 2006. Through the weekend when daddy slipped into unconsciousness, I too slipped back in time and reflected on my relationship with this man which had over the years turned from one of hate and conflict into one of love and mutual respect. Where he was once proud and straight, he was now bent over and dependent on his nurse and anyone else for the most basic of needs. When I would meet him and give him my hand, he would almost always say he was fine (thumbs up), even if he was not. He would signal and ask about everyone else even though he was not okay. Shaken by this last episode, I realized how the tables were probably turned.

I wandered into the balcony where in the same cream-colored Mothercare bathtub which my children had long since outgrown now blooms a chilli plant that my husband planted. Was this ‘chilli plant in a bathtub’ a metaphor for my relationship with daddy? Spicy at the beginning, nurturing and life-giving now because of my children, his grandchildren. The delicate, bowing flowers always reminding me that life is fragile and, well, humbles us as we age.

Daddy, I was always too proud to call you daddy. In your life however you taught me that it is in humility and grace that we become taller. It is in bending that we become straight. And that in the end it’s just the memories that sustain us.

P.S. I wish to thank my lovely friend Norann Voll at Bruderhof (@NorannV on Twitter) who through her comments on my draft encouraged me to use the powerful image of the ‘chilli plant in a bathtub’ as a metaphor for my relationship with my dad-in-law, and thus helped me write a special piece for him.