Photo prompt: Janet Puddicombe
The morning was overcast but the weatherman promised afternoon sunshine. “A perfect day,” the man in his not-quite-fitting suit gushed, and Lola felt protective. No one better dare mock him!
It didn’t take a doctorate to recognize what he woke in her: Her father, hiding repeated humiliations, readying to leave for yet another job interview that he already knew would likely go to someone younger and better educated, with no giveaway accent and a lighter complexion.
“Go get’em, Dad,” she’d tell him as he’d fuss over the knot of his tie or the papers in his attache.
“Thank you, Querida,” he’d say as he buttoned the jacket for his only suit, the one that didn’t fit him as it should. Or perhaps never had. He’d certainly gotten it off the rack.
She’d tried to convince him to get one tailor-made.
“I’m no big boss, Querida,” he’d always shrug her off. “Just a man looking for a job. Perhaps one day, Lola, when you’re a doctor, for your graduation, I’ll buy me one.”
She eyed his favorite flowers. Bought as she had those days, to cheer him up.
“Perhaps,” she whispered, buttoning her cape, “you’d have gotten that suit. Today, Dad.”
For the Sunday Photo Fiction challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
Beautifully told tale of the difficulties in new beginnings…
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Thank you, my friend! I was thinking of the many sacrifices that immigrants (and not just immigrants) do for their children, and for the ‘adulting’ that calls for many of us to sometimes button up our courage and put ourselves on the line, against the odds, in attempts to put food on the table. And … for how loved ones can know it …
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You did a fabulous job at expressing it.
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Yay hurray! 🙂 Me so glad! 🙂
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🙂
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Very touching story of the daily struggles of an immigrant to put food on the table.
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A sad sort of tale if I understood it right, that her father hasn’t survived to be present at her graduation day. Yet how proud of her he’d have been.
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You got it!
And it is the story of so many … in one way or another. I hoped it would resonate. Yes, sad tale, and mixed in it the pride he’d feel and the pride she feels in him.
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It’s a good story, well told.
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Thank you, Crispina! 🙂
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He did the best he could. He’d have been so proud of her. Beautifully written Na’ama.
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Thank you, Keith! I’m sure he would’ve been proud of her, at least as much as she is proud of him …
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Beautifully bittersweet….
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Thank you Donna! 🙂
A friend of mine told me of how her grandmother, an immigrant who cleaned homes and worked as a maid for years, and who’d barely had schooling (and certainly no high-school diploma or the equivalent), had always talked about how proud she was of her grand-kids finishing high-school and “even going to college.” She was very proud of my friend for getting into college, but passed away during the last year of my friend’s undergraduate degree. I’m sure there are many such stories everywhere. I’m glad if some of it got communicated.
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