“Mummy, Dada! I came top in my class of 800! Are you proud of me?”, the message pops up on my phone. It’s Sophie; our exchange student-daughter. She is texting from France where she returned after staying with us for a year of high-school. During her year with us, we became so close that she started calling me mummy and Mark dada. We fit perfectly like pieces of a puzzle. When she left, it was like going through surgery, no one wanted it but it was mandatory. Back in France she is at a top college. And of 800 students, she is the topper, pretty impressive, huh?

Mark texted back effortlessly, “yes proud of you – and missing you – love Dada”. I wrote, “ummm…only a little bit” with lots of naughty emojis.

Later I confess to Mark – I didn’t know how to properly respond to Sophie’s question. Mark asks me why.

I find myself breaking into tears.

I grew up in an Indian household with a demanding, hard to please father. He held me – and my sister – to a high standard, we had to earn his love. He told my sister & me how hard he had worked to earn his station in life – which was true. He was a self-made man, the eldest son in a poor family who rose to become a successful engineer earning two doctorates, and winning numerous national & international awards. Most people we knew looked up to him as a paragon of success. He looked up to him as a paragon of success. He was proud of himself. – Just a little too proud – for humans around him.

I don’t recall ever feeling that there was a pre-requisite to earn my mother’s love. With her, I felt safe. But that safety shattered when she passed away when I was a teenager. The ensuing years were difficult – my father quickly remarried – and now we seemed to have an avatar of the fairytale step-mother. She took the crack between our father and us, and turned into it a gulf. My father became more & more proud of himself – and harder & harder to impress. – But children are children and they continue to seek validation from their parents long after they reach adulthood. Somewhere deep inside, I wanted my father- my one living parent – to see me, to acknowledge me, to say he was proud of me. But – the words never came. Even when I won the All India Gold Medalist award at my masters, he didn’t say those words. Even when my sister & I moved to America to follow our dreams, the dreams that he himself had inculcated in us, he didn’t say the words. Even when we finished our UCLA course in film with multiple distinctions – an education from a top film-school that we had self-funded, he didn’t say the words.

And then my sister died of cancer. And all the words felt frivolous. What did it matter what we said or didn’t say? No words mattered to me anymore – for a while.

Then I met Mark. After living together for 7 years we got married. As a wedding gift, I gave him a folly, a trifle, a t-shirt with a funny line that said “proud husband of a freaking awesome Indian wife.” I thought he would wear it once and we would have a laugh. He did wear it – but not just once. Instead, he wore down that first t-shirt and then bought another one and then another. He wore it on the film sets where I was directing and he wore it when I was invited as guest speaker at occasions. He wore it during fun times and he wore it when I was sick, and especially on days I felt anxious or depressed. I have only just started to realize he is trying to tell me something! 🙂

For years my relationship with the words “pride or proud” has been difficult. I have never felt or uttered the words “I am proud of myself”. For I have seen first-hand how pride in oneself can turn into arrogance & how destructive that can be for relationships. And being proud of someone else requires a sense of “ownership” – it makes a bold statement to life that says, “you are my person – and you are cool – so I am proud of you”; losing my sister who I had claimed from life as my person makes that difficult for me. That is what made my reply to Sophie so complicated. She has her own family in France, her own people who claim her, who ought to be proud of her. Who am I to make that claim?

I – don’t – know – what happened – but this week for the first time in decades and out of the blue my father posted a picture of me on his Facebook wall with the line “I am proud of your accomplishments…keep it up”.

I was struck. What just happened? What did I suddenly do to be worthy of his pride? – Maybe the ice between us is thawing. Maybe time; that great healer is doing its job. Maybe the father is beginning to see his daughter. Whatever it is, my eyes misted over as I read that line on his wall over and over again. I wrote back a simple thank you.

But receiving that unexpected gift reminded me of something significant. Everything is possible in life. It is possible for a father to send an unexpected answer to a question his estranged daughter was grappling with, and it is possible for a half-mom to claim her French student-daughter as her own. For the truth is no one truly belongs to us, we only belong to life. But being proud of someone is an act of courage – it says no matter what happens tomorrow, but for this moment in time – you are a part of me and you are cool and I am proud of you.

So I sent Sophie another message, it said “Dearest Sophie, I am proud of your accomplishments, keep it up….love mummy”.

And I wore this t-shirt.

Swati Srivastava is a proud wife, mom and sister. She is also an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and an immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com