When I remember my father, this is the image of him that is most clear in my mind’s eye; of him, hunched over his desk, his typewriter, a notepad, or random scraps of paper that he carefully cut out of previously used sheets, saving the unused spaces that he would later fill with his small neat writing. He would write at all hours; late into the night, preparing Sunday sermons; and at dawn, making notes from his endless examination of Bible commentaries. And he would write everywhere, constantly jotting down reminders to himself about things only he knew. Even after his typewriter was replaced by a computer, his only concession to the digital world was that he condescended to dictate his handwritten notes to my mother, who would type them into the ether.I took this picture almost ten years ago, on Christmas Day, after lunch. I don’t know what he was writing, but the pose is unmistakeable. Though my father never wrote a book in his life, he seemed to never stop writing; even after retirement. It was as if he knew that it was soon to be taken away. When illness deprived him of the ability to read and write, I took it upon myself to organise his desk and store away many of his books and papers, and I found his study packed with his penmanship. There were notes for Bible study groups, random mini-reviews and recommendations of books he had read, an eulogy to some unknown friend. And scores of letters to my mother, sent from all over the world during his many travels; tight lines crammed onto flimsy aerogrammes, postmarked from Switzerland and Ecuador, America and India, England and Cyprus. Many of these too had been written whenever he had a moment to spare, in airports and on trains. Writing seemed to fill the crevices of my father’s world. He now leaves a crack in mine no writing can seem to fill.
Son of the Morning Light 