The White Desk

One of my fondest memories early on, of my father's love for me when I was a child, is the memory of visiting the house he was having built for our family when I was 5. I still can remember the sensation of slight dizziness as he and I were looking out of the big rectangular hole that would become my bedroom window for my own room on the second floor. He was so proud, and I remember how happy I was to have his attention lavished on me like this. As soon as the house was finished, he had a master carpenter built a personally designed built-in desk for me, looking out of the window that he and I had gazed out of when it was just a hole in an unfinished brick wall. He himself had never had his own desk, I knew that, and for him to pay such loving attention to a desk for me was truly touching. The desk was large, had a ton of drawers, and he also filled it with notebook paper for me, and pencils and a nice ruler, and a nice ink pen.He had it painted white, to match the glossy white top, and in the winter sitting at my desk was toasty warm, because of the heater right at my feet. The window above the desk looked out in to the bamboo garden that was always full of a host of twittering small birds in the spring and summer. The large window opened all the way, and I spent many a summer's eve gazing up at the stars before going to bed. I loved that desk, and I wonder if it is still at the house, if the next owners kept it intact. That desk was mine to enjoy until I left for the US in1976, when I was 19. My father and I were never closer as when he had that desk made for me, and I wonder to this day, what happened to him, that he lost track of me, lost interest, and never really let me know again that I was special to him. We respected each other intellectually, and he worked hard for all of us, but I never again felt that he personally loved me. We became polite acquaintances, perhaps as his life became more and more complex and stressful, and he became more and more slavishly devoted to our mother and her whims. I loved my handsome father very much, he had great charisma, charm and intelligence, he never told me once he loved me. But, I have to believe he did love me once, if only briefly, because of the wonderful memories and the wonderful story I can share now of the big, beautiful white desk he had made once upon a time, just for me.