Learnings for life.

Some incidents of past stay with you forever. Learnings for life.
Just happened to recollect one of them and thought it was worth to pen it.
20 years back, my dad's job required him to do a lot of touring all across India. And everytime he came back from a trip, it was fun time for us, as he would definitely get some goodies for us, even if they were those free chocs given on the flight.
This particular trip of his was to Delhi which was initially scheduled for 2 weeks. We gave him a small shopping list before he left and I had asked for a digital dislay "Disco watch". I was eagerly waiting for him to come back with my watch , dreaming day and night about it. And the trip kept getting prolonged to a month and a half. Delhi to chandigarh to Jaipur to God knows where else he travelled back then in that one trip. He came back home after a 36 hr long tiring train journey. I was not at home when he arrived and later when I came back from play, mom announced Dad is back and he is taking rest. I went running to him , woke him up and he was ready to hug me, when the most insensitive me ignored his stretched hands and just asked "Dad, where's my watch? "!!! He was disappointed for sure, but he did his best to conceal it. He unpacked and gave me my watch and other goodies he got for me. I was too happy about the new stuff and went to show them off to my friends. Later, mom called me aside and asked me "Did you ask dad how his trip was? Did you tell him how much you missed him in the past month and a half and did you just sit and talk to him? He was waiting to meet you and all you asked for was the watch". It then hit me that dad was waiting to meet me and I just completely ignored him. I had never felt more guilty. I then went to dad , asked him how his trip was, told him about my school unit tests but no matter what I did, I dont know if it healed his hurt, it never healed mine. It was such a big learning for life, that till date am still making up for it. I make sure that no matter how anxious I am about the gift am going to receive from anyone, the people are far more important, and the precious moments need to be treasured and not the gifts!

But the goodies never actually hurt much ;-)