father returning home essay

Father Returning Home Summary & Analysis by Dilip Chitre

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
Poetic Devices
Vocabulary & References
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

Dilip Chitre's "Father Returning Home" reflects on the alienation of modern life, the disconnect between parents and children, and the desire for a sense of belonging. The father of the poem's title embarks on a lonely, late-night commute home from work in the city. After a long train ride, he rushes through the mud and the rain only to reach a joyless house with emotionally distant children, and he eventually falls asleep dreaming of his ancestors. Chitre published "Father Returning Home" in his 1980 collection Travelling in a Cage . The poem is written in free verse and was inspired by Chitre's memories of his own father, a periodical publisher in Mumbai, coming home from work in the 1950s.

Read the full text of “Father Returning Home”

The Full Text of “Father Returning Home”

“father returning home” summary, “father returning home” themes.

The Alienation and Restlessness of Modern Life

Lines 13-19
Lines 21-24

Family, Legacy, and Intergenerational Conflict

Lines 13-14

Lines 20-24

Fatherhood and Masculinity

Lines 10-16
Lines 20-21
Lines 22-23

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Father Returning Home”

My father travels ... ... his unseeing eyes

His shirt and ... ... humid monsoon night.

Now I can ... ... he hurries onward.

Lines 13-16

Home again, I ... ... a man-made world.

Lines 17-19

Coming out he ... ... on his wrists.

His sullen children ... ... a narrow pass.

“Father Returning Home” Symbols

Lines 21-22: “He will now go to sleep / Listening to the static on the radio,”

“Father Returning Home” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Lines 2-7: “Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light / Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes / His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat / Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books / Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age / fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.”
Lines 12-14: “His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward. / Home again, I see him drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati”
Lines 17-19: “Coming out he trembles at the sink, / The cold water running over his brown hands, / A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.”
Lines 10-12: “He hurries across the length of the grey platform, / Crosses the railway line, enters the lane, / His chappals are sticky with mud”
Lines 13-14: “I see him drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.”
Lines 18-19: “The cold water running over his brown hands, / A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.”
Lines 22-24: “Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming / Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking / Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.”
Lines 8-9: “Now I can see him getting off the train / Like a word dropped from a long sentence.”
Lines 4-5: “raincoat / Stained”
Lines 5-6: “books / Is”
Lines 6-7: “age / fade”
Lines 8-9: “train / Like”
Lines 15-16: “contemplate / Man's”
Lines 20-21: “share / Jokes”
Lines 21-22: “sleep / Listening”
Lines 22-23: “dreaming / Of”
Lines 23-24: “thinking / Of”

Parallelism

Lines 4-5: “and his black raincoat / Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books”
Line 6: “His eyes dimmed by age”
Line 11: “Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,”
Lines 13-14: “drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.”

“Father Returning Home” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

Estrangement
Subcontinent
(Location in poem: Line 2: “Standing among silent commuters”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Father Returning Home”

Rhyme scheme, “father returning home” speaker, “father returning home” setting, literary and historical context of “father returning home”, more “father returning home” resources, external resources.

Listen to the Poem Aloud — An animated recording of "Father Returning Home."

A Bilingual, Multi-Disciplinary Artist — Read a short overview of Chitre's many accomplishments, courtesy of Poetry International.

More Poems About Fathers — A collection of poems about fathers from The Academy of American Poets.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Easy Insightful Literature Notes

Father Returning Home Summary & Analysis

Father returning home: about the poem.

Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre is probably the most famous poem by this Indian poet. It is an autobiographical poem where the poet shows the loneliness and world-weariness of an old man in the modern society by depicting a picture of his own father returning home from work.

The poem is a true account of the poet’s father Purushottam Chitre’s life in 1957 when they moved from Baroda to Mumbai. The poem is expressive of the poet’s feeling for his father at a later stage. He realized how neglected and uncared-for his father was, even after being the lone bread-earner for the family.

But the poem ‘Father Returning Home’ has gone beyond its autobiographical significance . It is now an account of any old man who does the hard work for his family but leads a monotonous life where no one is there to take care of him, to converse with him or to understand his feelings.

The poem consists of two stanzas of 12 lines each. It is written in free verse with no particular meter or rhyme scheme followed. And the lack of rhythm is symbolic of the poet’s father’s uncared-for life. The language is easy and simple but full of symbolic expressions and poetic devices like simile. It is in first person narrative where the poet-speaker narrates how his father returns home and what he does thereafter.

Dilip Chitre: about the poet

Dilip Purushottam Chitre (1938-2008) was a notable Indian poet, critic, painter and filmmaker of the modern era. His father used to publish an important periodical Abhiruchi, and perhaps it had a great influence upon his career. Dilip himself went on to publish one named Shabda along with Arun Kolatkar and Ramesh Samarth. He was one of the most important figures behind the “little magazine movement” of the sixties in Marathi. His Ekun Kavita or Collected Poems were published in the nineteen nineties in three volumes. He also edited An Anthology of Marathi Poetry (1945–1965) . Read more about him at Wikipedia .

Father Returning Home: Line by line analysis

My father travels on the late evening train

The poem begins with the speaker’s description of his father’s travelling home. The father is travelling in a late evening train after finishing his work for the day. ‘Late evening train’ may indicate how long the father works so that it regularly gets that late for him to return home.

Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light

The father is standing among the silent passengers in the yellow light inside the train compartment. This line is indicative of his sufferings during the journey. After working so hard, he is returning home standing on the foot-board, as he doesn’t get a seat there to relax. The ‘silent commuters’ are not friendly enough to converse with him or among themselves. The yellow light is not the best thing either to promote any cheerfulness. All these things further intensify his agony and make the journey monotonous.

Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes

The suburbs are sliding past the moving train. But the poet’s father has no intention to look at those. He is unmoved by these scenes, for he has seen those many a times and finds nothing new or interesting in it. So the sliding landscapes also add to the sense of monotony.

His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books Is falling apart.

Now the poet makes us know that it was a rainy day. His father’s dresses are all wet with the rain water and the black raincoat is damaged with mud. The bag he was carrying was stuffed with books and he was struggling to handle it.

These lines are again indicative of the difficulties poet’s father has to face during his journey. It gets even worse in the rainy season. The black raincoat might indicate the lack of colour in his dull life. Again his bag full of books hints that he was an educated and scholarly man, not that unimportant that one would think from his ordinary routine journey.

His eyes dimmed by age fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.

Now the poet gives us an impression of his father’s age. His eyesight is dimmed by his old age. The father looks homeward with his low vision through the humid monsoon night. The gloomy atmosphere also adds to the dullness of his life.

Now I can see him getting off the train Like a word dropped from a long sentence.

The poet’s father gets down from the train. Here Dilip Chitre has used a fine simile in comparing his father to an unimportant word in a long sentence. This is quite unique. He says that his father gets down just like a word dropped from a long sentence. The poet indicates how unimportant his father is to the crowd in the train. It does not really make any difference whether he got down or not. He is not that relevant to the rest of the world.

He hurries across the length of the grey platform, Crosses the railway line, enters the lane, His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.

After getting off the train the father hurries towards his home. He crosses the grey platform and the railway line and finally enters the lane. His ‘sticky with mud’ chappals can’t prevent him hurrying onward.

The poet has used the word ‘hurries’ twice to bring in a sense of escapism from the dull humid atmosphere, grey platform and muddy streets where no one would care for him. He just wants some solace at his own home.

Home again, I see him drinking weak tea, Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.

The second stanza of the poem Father Returning Home begins here. In this stanza the poet depicts the isolation of his father in his own home.

The poet sees his father reach home again like the other days. Then he sees him drink weak tea and eat a stale chapati. The poet hints at how nobody cares for him even at home. But the man does not have any complain with his tea or food, as he is used to it. As we see, he rather concentrates on reading a book while having his tea. He has probably given up on expecting more care form his family members.

He goes into the toilet to contemplate Man’s estrangement from a man-made world.

Now the speaker’s father goes into the toilet with a thought of how men become isolated from the man-made world. And this line nearly sums up the theme of the entire poem . The father is indeed aware of his estranged situation and hopes to find some support in the family when he hurries towards his home. But the hope is diminished as he reaches and finds the same indifference there. Moreover, the toilet might act as a symbol of how small his world has been. The toilet seems to be the only place the man has to go to contemplate over his loneliness.

Coming out he trembles at the sink, The cold water running over his brown hands,

The father comes out from the toilet and goes to wash his hands at the wash basin. The speaker observed him trembling at the sink when cold water was running down his brown hands. His trembling might be due to his old age, the coldness of the water and also the fearful thought of his isolation from the rest of the world.

A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.

A few drops of water clinging to the grey hairs on his wrists may have some greater implication. Water generally symbolizes life and grey hairs stand for the old age. So, the old man’s life is just holding on to his old age. This life has no significance to anyone else.

His sullen children have often refused to share Jokes and secrets with him.

Now the poet goes on to talk about the old man’s relationship to his family members. His bad-tempered children refuse to share jokes and secrets with him. That said, they don’t share a close and friendly association with their father. Rather they regard him as an outdated, unwanted burden, though he seems to be the only earning member of the family.

He will now go to sleep Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.

We are in the final stage of the poem where we see the father going to sleep listening to the radio and thinking of many things like his ancestors, his grandchildren and of the Aryans, the people entering the Indian subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the ancient time.

The sound of the radio is even noisy (static), giving another reference to the old man’s miserable life. However, his dreaming of his ancestors and grandchildren gives the impression that he finds some solace in thinking about his past and future generation. It is an attempt to escape from his mundane routine-life devoid of human contact. Again, his thought of the Aryans may indicate that he is thinking of how the society has changed since the ancient times when they had come here. Now this modern world has no place for the elderly people, has no one to think about their loneliness or care for them.

Thus, the poem ‘Father Returning Home’ by Dilip Chitre sympathises with the old neglected people in our society. No doubt, his message is well delivered here. This poem has given the poet a lot of respect and popularity through all these years.

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‘Father Returning Home’ by Dilip Chitre – Poem Analysis

‘Father Returning Home’ is a poignant poem about the sacrifices that parents, especially fathers, make in order to ensure that their children live well.

This post includes a breakdown of the stanzas, an insight into the speaker + voice of the poem, and an exploration of the themes and deeper meanings. It’s is only a quick overview to help you get to grips with the poem; you can access a complete in-depth breakdown of the poem, plus tasks, exercises and essay questions via the links below.

Suburbs – a residential peripheral district of a city
Soggy – wet and soft with the potential to be damaged as a result
Humid – high level of water vapour in the atmosphere
Chappals – a pair of sandals, usually leather, worn in India
Chapati – a thin flatbread used in Indian cooking
Estrangement – no longer being on friendly terms or part of a social group
Droplets – a very small drop of liquid
Sullen – bad-tempered or in a sulk

STORY/SUMMARY

My father travels late in the evening, where he gets on the train amongst other tired commuters. Suburbs quickly pass his tired eyes; his clothes are worn out and his bag is almost falling apart. His aged eyes travel through the wet and humid monsoon night. I can imagine him getting off the train quickly, like a word that’s been dropped from a long sentence, disappearing from the platform and hurrying to work. Even though his slippers are caked with mud, he continues and races to work. Once home, he drinks weak tea, eats a chapati from earlier in the day, and faintly reads a book. He goes to the toilet and thinks about his own detachment from the world. Trembling at the thought of his own existence, his hands shake at the sink, where cold water attaches itself to his greying wrist hair. His own serious children no longer share jokes or secrets with him. He goes to sleep drifting off to the static radio and dreams of his ancestors, and nomads entering India through a narrow pass.

SPEAKER/VOICE

The speaker of the poem is the child of the father who is the poem’s subject. He narrates the story of his father’s life, using synecdochic anecdotes to show the repetitive monotony of his days – the main commutes to work, eats the same food regularly, and feels lost and despondent about his life. The speaker describes their perspective on their father as they were growing up and conveys the hardship of work that their father went through. The child seems painted by the experience and depicts his heartbreak at seeing his father work so tirelessly, with no respite. Through the child’s lens, we are also exposed to the father’s own heartache, and his everyday existence where it appears that he worked incredibly hard for his family, but at the expense of not being able to give time and energy to being a father. The child’s perspective is also widened to include the other children, where the speaker describes the children as also learning from and imitating the father’s alienating behaviour, where there is a clear lack of communication within the family.

TASK : Read ‘Those Winter Sundays’, by Robert Haydn. Consider the poem’s outlook on identity and urban living. Compare and contrast how Haydn and Chitre explore themes of alienation and disillusionment in their poems.

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How does Dilip Chitre describe his father’s train journey in ‘Father Returning Home’?

Father Returning Home is a short and appealing poem about an old man in a cosmopolitan city where his own sons and daughters treat him as an alien. He himself is estranged from the man-made world. Through this poem, Chitre has denounced the urban rootlessness and alienation. The poem, Father Returning Home focuses on the theme of alienation or estrangement experienced by the aged in their twilight years. Dilip Chitre talks about his own father and through the poem, we get to know the alienation, isolation and misery experienced by elderly people, especially in cities.

The first stanza of Father Returning Home describes the train journey of his father while returning home one evening. The father stands among commuters in the yellow light of a local compartment. The poet describes his father’s reaction against the sights of the suburbs that pass by. His father remains unmoved by the sights because they are too familiar to him. That is quite normal, isn’t it? We hardly pay attention to those places where we travel every day, unless the place has something interesting to offer. Same was with the poet’s father. The poet then describes his father’s pathetic condition, as he travels during the rainy season. His clothes become damp and dirty. The black raincoat that he wears becomes stained with mud. His bag crumbles with the heavy load of the books. Due to old age, the poet’s father’s eyesight has become poor and therefore he finds difficulty to move about in the dark. The poet says that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides an evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if he is no longer relevant to it. The poet then sees his father hurrying through the long, grey platform. The man seems to be as old as the platform, who has been using it as a part of his routine. He crosses the railway tracks and hurries home through muddy lanes on a rainy day. This is indicated by his chappals which are sticky with mud. This stanza portrays the monotonousness of the old man , who sustains the vagaries of weather as well as the estrangement from the man-made.

The second stanza, the poet represents the alienation of his father that he experiences in his own dwelling. The poet tells us that his father drinks a weak tea and eats a stale chapatti when he comes back home. This shows that the even his basic requirements are not properly carried out by his family. A sense of pity for the poet’s father arises in us, what do you think? The father is then seen going into a contemplative mood after reading some kind of a philosophical book. He goes to the toilet and contemplates over man’s alienation from the man-made world. This exhibits that the man is visibly upset with his predicament. He is terribly shaken when he comes out of the toilet and trembles while he washes his hands at the wash basin. It seems that he trembled not only because of the cold water but also due to the thoughts that came into his mind while he was thinking in the toilet. The father finds himself all alone in his room as he is written off by his children. The children do not interact with their father; they do not share their joys or sorrows with him. To compensate their company, the father listens to the radio. Then he goes to sleep. In his sleep, he dreams about his ancestors and grandchildren. It seems that he is trying to communicate with his ancestors who had entered the subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in the past. The dream mirrors that the old man is either thinking about his past (his ancestors) or his future (his grandchildren). It is a kind of relief to him from his mundane routine, devoid of any human contact.

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wonderfully

good good very goooooood. goood jab..

Thanks for your help… It helped me a lot. But i have a doubt what does ‘yellow light’ stands for? ?

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Father returning home by dilip chitre.

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In Father Returning Home, Dilip Chitre gives an account of the ordinary life led by modern man, classically represented here as a father and breadwinner of his family. Chitre focuses on the isolated existence the man leads, alienated from his near ones, a sordid and desolate life. There is focus on the life of an Indian father, a life that is the product of modernization due to colonization by Great Britain. This life is pebbled by hardships, work difficult hours and conditions, low wages, and a pessimistic response to imperialism. He returns from work late in the evening, a silent commuter among several others like him in the dim yellow light of the train. He is detached from his surroundings as "suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes", his desolate state remarkable in its pathos: his "shirts and pants soggy", "black raincoat stained with mud" and "bag stuffed with books is falling apart". He imagines he is at home as his "eyes fade homeward". The climate is humid: it is the monsoon season. The father starts getting off the compartment of the train, an act that has been compared to that of one insignificant word being dropped off from a long sentence. He makes his way, his hurried gait homewards significant in their irony, as we discover later. Here, in the first stanza, the extensive detailing of the concrete platform, seems to bring out the tediousness of this man-made metropolis; this outlines the core of an organized society and city, but still deprives man of the aesthetics of a freer, fresher environment that adds more value to a man's existence. Our next stop is the man's home, where we expect him to find peace, love, care, an escape from the external tensions of work; his hurried gait does suggest the same. However the description of his "weak tea" and "stale chapatti" breaks this illusion; this man is alienated at home too.

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Father Returning Home Poem Summary Notes and Explanation in English AP Board Class 9

Back to: Andhra Pradesh Board Class 9th English Guide and Notes

Table of Contents

Introduction

Written by Dilip Chitre, this poem paints the picture of an alienated man returning home from work. The speaker in the poem is this man’s child. The speaker observes his father and describes him as a lonely figure who leads a monotonous life and is burdened by responsibilities.

The speaker begins by describing the daily routine of his father. On his way back home after an exhausting day, the speaker’s father travels on the late evening train . He does not engage in any conversations with the other commuters in the train. The silence and the unseeing eyes of the speaker’s father show that he is a lonesome human who finds little joy in the company of others.

The soggy shirt and pants imply that his job requires a lot of hard work. The father’s muddied raincoat and the dilapidated bag also mean that his own mental and physical state is in a terrible condition. Burdened by the load of work and tired of leading a life of monotony, the speaker’s father is a classic example of the modern man caught in the clutches of a meaningless existence and deprived of all spiritual joy.

Back to home, the father resumes his same routine of drinking weak tea, eating a stale chapati and reading a book . The speaker observes his father contemplating about the paradox of man’s existence. “ Man’s estrangement from a man-made world ” here refers to the paradox of man’s existence. Though humans have themselves created their society and chosen to toil each day, most humans remain aloof and alienated from this world that is their own creation.

His body too seems to be giving up on him as he trembles while walking and has greying hair on his wrists . He is deprived of familial joys because of an emotional rift between him and his children. The speaker’s father is thus a tired man deprived of happiness and weighed down by the unchanging nature of human life. No hopes or joys come his way and he is burdened by the monotony of a dull life.

The subject of this poem is a father figure who can be equated to any man in today’s world. His life routine can be paralleled to that of any modern day human living a meaningless life in midst of a spiritual crisis. The poem is as much a depiction of the mid-life existential crisis of a hardworking father, as it is a comment on the modern man’s dilemma over his meaningless life. The modern man leads a life with no spiritual or emotional fulfilment, which drains out all his zest and zeal to enjoy life.

HSC English Teacher

Father returning Home – APPRECIATION of the poem

Father Returning Home

APPRECIATION OF THE POEM

‘Father Returning Home’ by Dilip Chitre expresses the generational separation between a “father” and “children” through vivid visuals. The poet Dilip Chitre depicts the picture of his own father a Suburban commuter returning home from work. The father is unhappy in his life. The connection he desires with the children he loves is denied by those very “children.” Alienation is the prominent concept within poem. The father is tired, and he feels trapped in his life due to a lack of control.

The poem has two stanzas of twelve lines each. The tone of the poem is sharply unsentimental. The tone is sad and dull. The language used is contemporary. The poem does not have any rhyme. It is written in the form of a dramatic monologue. The poet has made use of pictorial words to describe the pathetic condition of the father. The vivid phrases help us visualize the picture of the uncared father making his way home. For example, the father’s image on the “train” with “soggy” clothes and a “black raincoat stained with mud” is a defeated and sad visual. Simile, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia are the figures of speech effectively used in this poem.

Isolation, Alienation is the theme of this poem. When the father comes home after a tiring day at work, there is no one to care for him or engage him in conversation. His tragedy is not unique but one that is seen commonly in cosmopolitan cities. In this teeming city he is friendless and at home too this loneliness finds an echo.

I like this poem for it’s real and brutally honest depiction of modern life. The poem speaks of a classic disconnect between generations. It is expressed from the perspective of a child through the observations of his father. Those recollections from the child end with feelings of sympathy for the father.

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Returning to my childhood home, and memories of my late father

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They say you can never go home again. Well, I disagree.

Thirty-seven years ago, my father died from pancreatic cancer. It was the day after my seventeenth birthday.

The six-week nightmare, from diagnosis to death, plunged my life into a state I no longer recognized. Although it was summer, it seemed the sunlight refused to shine through the tall windows facing our grassy backyard. Regardless of the L.A. heat outside, inside was bleak and shadowy.

The walls, once witness to boisterous family dinners, barbecues, birthday, pool and slumber parties, became painted in grief. We tiptoed through the hallways and my parents’ bedroom without making a sound so my dad could rest. Sometimes his reflexive hiccups were the only sound.

A year after my father passed, we sold the home that my parents built in the hills while my mother was pregnant with me. Packing up my childhood home and all the memories it contained was painful, not to mention daunting.

I had saved everything: crumpled notes passed in class, fading fortune cookie fortunes, a plethora of Barbies replete with flashy wardrobe, board games with missing pieces. And then there was my precious record collection: a smorgasbord of disparate musical tastes ranging from Kool & the Gang to The Partridge Family.

For a long time afterward, I struggled to remember the good times we had in our home — family game nights where someone always cheated at Monopoly (usually me), late-night summer swims and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass wafting through the house — since the memories were so tainted with our loss.

For the past 30 years, once a year, I’ve made the drive up the long steep road to our old home. I’ve parked my car outside the black iron gate and peeked through the slats, so I could see the blacktop of our wide front yard where we’d spend hours doing relay races and playing tag until our mom summoned us for dinner.

I always fought my desire to ring the doorbell, greet the new owners and walk through the house one last time, fearful that the memories would overpower me and tear at the wound again.

Filled with fear, I stopped short at the driveway pushing away my longing, as if I was brushing crumbs off my sweater. And each time I resigned myself to the fact that I probably would never step inside my childhood home ever again.

Then, one night, we agreed to go out to dinner with new friends — a lovely couple we kept running into from our neighborhood. The conversation was effortless and drifted to a discussion about our kids.

I shared that both of my kids are in their 20s, my daughter was working in advertising, my son was attending graduate school. They told me they have a son in his 30s who is married and remodels houses in the area. He had just completed a home in the hills, they said, and the wife mentioned the street. I felt a rush through my body. “That’s the name of the street I grew up on. What is the address?”

A quick text to her son and seconds later, she showed me his answer. I felt my heart catch in my chest. It was my home.

The following Sunday was a broker’s open house and we were welcome to come by, her son told us. I was beside myself that I would finally be able to see my old home, but I was also torn by mixed feelings. Would it be painful? What would my old bedroom look like? Would I cry?

The sun was shining brightly that Sunday, but I still felt a darkness hovering in my soul. I knew it would look different since it had just been remodeled. What I didn’t know was how I would feel seeing it for the first time in decades..

To my awe and delight, the bones of my old home were intact, but the inside was modernized. White, airy, the rooms were flooded with light, and vibrant jewel-toned artwork canvassed the walls. It was beautiful and breezy, the complete opposite of the 1970s home that had the shag carpeting and bold geometric prints of my parents’ generation.

I stood in the den where my father used to love to read and smoke his pipe in his leather easy chair. It was the room we all piled in to watch the “Movie of the Week” and football games. The very same place where my sister and I held our dance-a-thons with our neighborhood friends.

But it had gone through a makeover. The dark wood paneling and shiny silver and blue metallic wallpaper of its day were gone. Bright white walls that reflected warm beams of sunlight stood in their place.

They had removed the wall between the den and our kitchen creating a great big open space perfect for seating, dining and cooking. Glossy white cabinets had replaced the dark brown cabinets my mother had meticulously stained herself. In the place where our oval white Formica kitchen table used to stand — dominating our world — there now sat a sleek rectangular wooden table with modern white leather chairs.

My bedroom, where I used to spend hours playing school with my imaginary students or giving my army of Barbies my untrained version of a makeover, looked smaller. The uber-feminine bubblegum pink tiled bathroom I shared with my sister had gone through a transformation: It was now slick and ultramodern, all white and gray and chrome.

The house — my house — was so beautiful, so tastefully decorated that it was as if someone sprinkled fairy dust over it. There was no room for sadness or darkness in this magnificent space.

It made me want to celebrate, to throw a party. I left feeling a lightness in me that I hadn’t felt in years.

On the drive back to my current home, I released the memory of my former home that was loaded with despair and gave myself permission to let go of the grief and accept the wonderful gift that I’d been given.

What was always a lovely home had become truly majestic.

My dad would have loved seeing it. In my mind, I imagine him relaxing among the splendor in his easy chair — letting in the light, once again.

The author is a writer in Los Angeles. Her website is carpoolgoddess.com . Find her on Twitter and Instagram @carpoolgoddess.

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I planned on confronting my absent father about his parenting. But when I asked to hear his side, I learned a powerful lesson.

My father was absent throughout most of my life, so I went to Ghana to confront him about it.
In Ghana, I learned about my father's past and understood his perspective for the first time.
Although we will never be close, the conversation healed our relationship and taught me empathy.

A few years ago, I visited my father in Ghana and asked to hear his story about why he was an absent parent . This conversation helped me heal, forgive, and transform how I view disagreements today.

At the time, I had a lot of built-up resentment and anger toward my dad. In my mind, he stopped making a meaningful effort to see me or show up for me after he remarried. He and his new family lived in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Finland — while my mom, my brother, and I initially struggled with being unhoused and being on welfare here in the US.

I dealt with a lot of feelings of rejection , which I'd reflected on and worked through in therapy during my 20s. But in my 30s, it all came back, and I needed to deal with it head-on.

I decided to meet with my father to talk things through

There were times when I'd be driving, and I'd find myself weeping, questioning what I'd done to cause him not to fight for me. It was clear his rejection of me was still affecting the way I move about the world.

During a leadership training program, my cohort and I discussed our origins. I shared with the cohort that I had an upcoming trip to Ghana, and I had plans to confront my father.

Politely, a cohort member raised their hand. "Hey, what would it look like if you took a different approach?" he asked. "We all have empathy for each other because we know each other's stories."

I felt my heart rate quicken and my jaw clench in defensiveness. Despite my defensiveness, his words planted a seed that I brought up with my therapist. Together, my therapist and I started preparing for how I would turn my "confrontation" into a "conversation" with my father.

When the time came for my kids and me to travel to Ghana, I asked my father for one-on-one time and broached the topic.

"Hey, Dad, I never really heard your story. What was life like growing up for you, and what happened between us?"

I also asked my father to share his experiences growing up

My father grew up in Ghana, and his own father was only around a fraction of the time. My father also left his entire family for boarding school at 14 years old, and at 16, he left Ghana to come to the US.

Hearing this story, a lump formed in my throat as I felt — for the first time — empathy for my dad. I wonder how he felt as a little boy.

Fully immersing myself in my dad's story wasn't easy. It was challenging to remove my biased perspective of anger and distrust. I pushed myself to engage from a place of curiosity and ask him questions as if I was a student.

Hearing my dad's story helped me understand

At the end of our conversation, I told my father I disagreed with his approach but understood how he arrived at his conclusion. We hugged, and my father told me he was proud of me, which I never heard growing up.

This conversation did not transform us into a father-son duo holding hands and walking into the sunset. My dad's decision not to fight for a place in my life robbed both of us of father-son experiences that we can never get back.

However, this conversation gave me access to my heritage, Ghana, which I'd previously avoided. This allowed me to get involved in social entrepreneurial projects, like working with an elementary school and hiring and training Ghanaian staff members.

It also gave me access to an incredible mentor, my father . Previously, I avoided my dad. Now, I actively seek him out, particularly when I need feedback on a project.

Perhaps most importantly, this conversation taught me a profound lesson I now apply to every area of my life. I learned that when we do not seek to understand and respect the person we disagree with, it only hurts us.

That day, if I had chosen to confront my father from a place of vitriol and anger, his rejection would still haunt me, and I would have never learned the powerful lesson that every person has a story that shapes who they are today.

Justin Jones-Fosu's book, I Respectfully Disagree (releasing April 2024), challenges the reader to focus on building bridges with people rather than barriers from them. You can download an excerpt here . Justin is also a dad, the founder of Work.Meaningful where he serves as an international keynote speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author, and a mountain climber.

Watch: I was assaulted by a Met Police officer at 14, I now train them. Here's how police racism works

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