By: Munavvara USMONOVA
Worth Noting:
- Dad silently went out into the street. We began to worry about where he had gone after returning from work being tired in the middle of the night. My mother and I sat in silence, not knowing who to blame. It had been a long time. At one point, I was happy to see my father, who came with a paper bag in his hand.
- “Daughter, is this the sweater your friends bought?” – he said in a loud voice. – I have bought several of them at once. You choose the one you like and take the rest to the store in the morning.
My mother and I used to wait for my father to come home from work at midnight. I would pour water in his hand when my mother, who was sitting in the kitchen, wrapped the food so that it would not get cold. “My daughter, what’s the matter?” said my father, who liked to talk to me for a long time, he was surprised to see that my voice had changed that time. My mother said, “Yes, your daughter’s mood has deteriorated. Tomorrow, she and her classmates are going to make sumalak party in the yard of her friend Rozia. Everyone took a new sweater that came to the store only except your daughter. As I didn’t have a lot of money and I work nowhere to feed a child… That’s why she has been mad at me all day…” I felt embarrassed looking at my father, who suddenly lost his temper and wiped his hand after eating half of the soup in the bowl.
“Dad, don’t be sad, I have just told that, it’s not necessary.” I will go with the top I always wear. My brother Nasir said, “You won’t stay for the evening.” Anyway, he will bring me back before evening, I said.
Dad silently went out into the street. We began to worry about where he had gone after returning from work being tired in the middle of the night. My mother and I sat in silence, not knowing who to blame. It had been a long time. At one point, I was happy to see my father, who came with a paper bag in his hand.
“Daughter, is this the sweater your friends bought?” – he said in a loud voice. – I have bought several of them at once. You choose the one you like and take the rest to the store in the morning.
Although I am still a child, I threw myself into my father’s arms. I wore what I chose and “showed off”. Where and how he brought it in the middle of the night did not bother me. Later we found out that he had woken up the guard of the store at the head of the neighborhood and called the house of brother Rustamkhan, the seller. After receiving his permission, he brought home 3-4 of the “fashionable” fabric. I didn’t sleep until dawn because of my happiness. Neither my mother, who was always there for my brother, nor my father, who went to work before dawn, said, “If I sleep, I’ll be feeble”, they didn’t close an eye that day.
There have been many such cases. I remember when I was a student, they took me to the city of O’sh to buy a coat and boots that I liked. My father raised us with equal love. We also worshiped our father like saint and lived with rubbing his feet in our eyes. They have always been in the web of our home and our hearts.
But now that I think about it, my heart flutters with a dream. When he got old and couldn’t go out, I haven’t taken him to the store at least once and said: “Dad, choose the one you like, let me get it!” I haven’t even thought about why he kept the clothes I brought to him without wearing them and kept my gifts under his pillow…
Munavvara USMONOVA Uzbekistan, poet, journalist. Translated by: Maftuna DUNYO