Simple Pleasures

My father was not a great philosopher. He didnt leave behind pearl's of wisdom for me to remember and reminiscence about. He didnt leave behind a legacy of anecdotes for me to live by. So what I have of him are just the simple memories of him. Memories of times spent together. An inherent memory of an incident, a simple day spent doing nothing, yet somehow it became ingrained into the recesses of my mind for some reason, and in time became a cherished memory.

One such day I vividly remember is a day at the beach. It wasn't really a beach day, it was more of a fishing day, which I was at the time, not really interested in. My Daddy loved fishing. It was his favourite past time and I guess because of which, it also became Mummy's.

We lived in Dubai for much of my childhood and most of our family outings on weekends at that time, were spent fishing. I was not keen on fishing;
a) because I was never given the fishing reel (coz I normally either messed it up by entangling it together or got it entangled with Daddy's line and thus ruined both our reels) or,

b) I could not fish so I used to end up having the line in the water and ultimately allowing the fish to eat off my hook, which was obviously not good for the purpose of fishing.

So, since I was never given a line, the task that was given to me to keep me occupied was collecting the fish that Daddy caught and put them into the bag. I had no interest in this task, so I preferred sitting on the seashore close by, watching my parents at work or splashing in the water at a slightly further end from where they were fishing.

On this particular day, the catch that my father was hooking was Lady Fish. Who knows if the Gods were in our favour on that afternoon or Tritan; the King of the seas was being generous to us human folk, but Daddy struck gold while fishing. Daddy started fishing and every few minutes he would reel the line in with a fish dangling on it. He would hook it up again with bait and throw it back into the sea and a few minutes later reel it back in with another catch. This went on and on and on. Because of the frequency of Daddy's catch, Mummy had to stop fishing herself so that she could just keep collecting the fish that he was reeling in. I was so excited seeing this that I was prancing and splashing up and down in the water with excitement. I vividly remember the scene of Daddy continuously reeling in fish after fish and Mummy; laughing and excited with the catch was happily and quickly collecting all the fish that Daddy was unhooking and throwing onto the shore for her to pick. We collected that day two huge shopping bags of lady fish.

It was a very simple day with simple pleasures but somehow that basic and mundane day got affixed in the recesses of my memory for reasons that I do not know.

When going home, Daddy put his hand around my shoulder as we walked back to the car. " Did you have a good day today sweetie?" He asked me. "Yeah, I guess." I shrugged answering him, more preoccupied with the bag of all the sea shells I had collected on the sea shore that day. He paused a few seconds and in finality and as an after thought said, "We had fun together and that's what's most important."

And that is what is true and what stands out for me today. We were together. Making those memories as a family. Remembering that day today, I am transported back to that day and a feeling of happiness and contentment fills me. It meant nothing at the time, but today thinking of those moments, those cherished memories, makes me wish for so much more from life with him. So much more I could have enjoyed with him. How many of these simple days in our life do we take for granted? How much do we actually live it at that moment?
If I knew that this day would become a memory of a day with Daddy then would I have done something differently? Perhaps been a part of the whole fish collection and changed my memory in order to cherish it a little better?

One thing I do know. People may pass on but their memories live on. So Daddy didn't have any anecdotes for me. He just taught me to enjoy each moment without letting a moment slip by. He taught me to cherish life's simple pleasures and live them with all your heart. We have one life, filled with moments we create. We never know when life throws us a curve ball. It is important therefore to value each moment, live each moment and cherish the people we have with us, coz we never know when everything changes into one beautiful memory.