man

I saw you first, from posts on his Instagram. He has your eyebrows, though yours are more faded and sprinkled with age. You saw me later through photographs he kept in his phone. I looked younger than I was, making you tease him for courting a kid.

Two days before his graduation we finally met, though there was not much more from your subtle nod and my shy smile. You reminded me of my own dad, from how you spoke quietly to the way you brought your head back to look at your phone screen.

You were always the subject of our conversations at the marble table. He respected you, he was weary of you, he kept secrets from you. Your discipline was just as tough, but he never hated his father the way my older brother and I did ours.

Years ago I thought if our father was shorter than us, it was our turn to stand before and protect them. I long had the honour of being taller than mine, but it is nothing compared to how he towered above you. I had to watch the way he cared about you in a way my heart couldn't comprehend.

Maybe it is the way your face lights up whenever I visit, and my father's frown whenever he sees me. Maybe it is your longing to teach me about religion, compared to my father's usage of god's name in anger and pride. Maybe it is the way you take our relationship seriously instead of shrugging my feelings off like a phase.

It was him showing you pictures of me that tugged at my heart. It was looking at the old photographs where you looked exactly like the love of my life today. It was being told how much you'd wanted a daughter, that made me cry before him for the first time.

At first I envied him for that ability to love a man for his harshness. Through your impatience with your three sons and love for your two daughters-in-law, your gentleness with your nephew's autistic child; eventually I understood.

It was your family that welcomed me, from your mother who only stops grumbling about everything when I visit; your niece who insists I don't have to kiss her hand despite the age difference; your nephew who got me to try durian for the first time in my life.

Sadly that meant the fatherly love I felt came from somebody else's instead of mine. Against all odds, I chose the man who was the spitting image of my love. For now I can only smile at him in greeting, until the day I am allowed to hold and kiss his hand in respect.