Bridge Over Troubled Water

A poet and an angel-voiced
messenger, 1970. 

In the summer of 1994 my sister returned home from her first year at Cambridge University. Amongst the Tit Hall hoodies and other paraphernalia of uni life was a 'Best of Simon and Garfunkel" cassette. To my culturally inexperienced sixth-form mind this epitomised cool: classic Americana; folk music from another era; non-mainstream taste - everything I wished I was, yet wasn't. When my mum laughed and told me she and my dad had several of their LPs in her vinyl record collection I immediately sought out the first I could find and rushed upstairs to play it on my record player.  This was still - just - the era of the cube-shaped twin cassette stereo system topped with a turntable.  That day in 1994 I heard my first Simon and Garfunkel song: Bridge Over Troubled Water, the opening track to their 1970 album of the same name. 

When you're weary / Feeling small                                                                 When tears are in your eyes / I will dry them all

Now it is January 2015 and I exit Tin Hau MTR station on my way home from another day in the office. Set to shuffle, my iPhone spontaneously cues up the same song. Downloaded from iTunes, digitally remastered and played through my new Sennheiser headphones the sound quality is crystal clear, yet I can still hear in my mind the background crackle and hiss as if it is my parents' old vinyl copy playing. I close my eyes momentarily and I'm in my childhood bedroom eight thousand miles and twenty years ago. 

I'm on your side / When times are rough / And friends just can't be found         Like a bridge over troubled water / I will lay me down 

I'm walking to the zebra crossing and I can feel emotion welling up in my chest.  This is a love song, no doubt. But from whom, and to whom, I'm not sure. Then right there, as I cross Tung Lo Wan road lost in my own nostalgia-tinged world amidst a crowd of homeward-bound Hong Kongers, I think about Lara and Iliya.  And I know that this is my love song to my daughters.

When you're down and out / When you're on the street                                 When evening falls so hard / I will comfort you 

Lara and Iliya inhabit a world of innocence and wonder; play and fun; confusion and contradiction. They struggle and they learn: about right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, caring and sharing. And in the same way that Lara spontaneously and without looking reaches for my hand as we cross a road or head down a steep flight of stairs, or Iliya instinctively clings to me when we encounter yet another Hong Kong dog, they will look to Anita and I for guidance, protection, and an explanation of why the world is as it is - in all its wonderful contradictory glory. For now, we can give them answers. It won't always be that way.

I'll take your part / When darkness comes / And pain is all around                   Like a bridge over troubled water / I will lay me down

There are questions - spoken or unspoken - that I know will come in time and that I won't be able to answer. Why do people hurt each other? Why doesn't he love me? Why isn't life fair? How do I recover from life's setbacks? I know there will be times when I will want to put myself in their place, to take the blows and fight back on their behalf. Yet I know that it is for them to learn life's lessons and all I can do as their father is offer comfort, security and unconditional love.  To be there for them when they need me, even if they don't know it.  

Sail on silver girl / Sail on by                                                                             Your time has come to shine / All your dreams are on their way                       See how they shine 

I hope that in life both of my daughters find more happiness than pain. I hope that they each, in their own way, learn to shine. I hope they pursue what they love, and are bold enough now and again to turn their backs on conventional wisdom and follow their own path. I know it will be hard, I know at times we'll disagree more than we agree, and I know that sometimes they'll wish I would just go away. But I hope they know I'll always be there, waiting, for whenever they need me.

If you need a friend / I'm sailing right behind                                                     Like a bridge over troubled water / I will ease your mind    

   Like a bridge over troubled water / I will ease your mind