One of the greatest gifts I have ever received was a yellow toy truck when I was six. It was awesome (and had a helicopter on the back). I still remember opening the present and just being mesmerised by that bright, egg-yolk yellow. It was a gift I got for Iranian New Year. Iranian New Year is like Christmas combined with New Years for Iranians. Celebrated in mid-March, it coincides with the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. Unlike the Christmas and New Year dates in Western countries which (ironically) are claimed by some scholars to have been borrowed from ancient Iranian religions and mythologies.
I’d only been in Australia for a year, and the small amount of English I spoke consisted of the theme song to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For a time, I sung this song incorrectly as, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Turtles in a half shirr!”, so making friends was hard and fitting in was harder. Things weren’t made easier either by the fact that my lunch looked like poo. Which, if you’ve ever seen Iranian style kebabs freshly removed from the skewers they were made on — is actually fair enough. They are, however, significantly more yum.
I took my new toy to school, hoping to play with it in the dirt (a common luxury for children). Stored in the front section of my blue backpack, I would unzip the bag and glance at it throughout the day. But then came recess. After a refreshing drink from the bubbler, I went to my bag which I’d left on the benches to commence Operation Have Fun by Myself, but my bag was gone.
Stored in the front section of my blue backpack, I would unzip the bag and glance at it throughout the day.
It was Darren and Chris* — which are fake names, though I would’ve loved to use real ones because revenge is a dish best served on the internet many years later. Darren and Chris were these two brown haired kids with freckles and bucked teeth. They looked like a pair of rabbits.
When I spotted them with my truck, Darren was holding my bag. Then he threw it to Chris. Piggy in the middle. Darren to Chris. Chris to Darren. I tried to get it back. Darren slammed my bag against the brick wall. Slam. Slam. Slam! I panicked. He threw it to Chris. Slam. Slam. Slam! The bell rang. Chris dropped the bag. They walked away.
You know when you get to the bottom of a box of cereal and all that’s left is tiny crushed pieces? That’s what the truck was like — a jagged mess. No longer an awesome toy, and even more disappointing than an inedible breakfast.
I’m sure if I did try to consume the fragments, I would have died from sadness first before the plastic got me. I felt a pain in my stomach and began to weep. And weep. No words came to my rescue — though it wouldn’t have helped because I could really only speak in cartoon theme songs. I pointed to Darren and Chris, but it was no use. For some reason I distinctly recall pointing to my stomach, either out of shame that I was crying without a tangible reason, or maybe to convey the cereal metaphor somehow.
No words came to my rescue — though it wouldn’t have helped because I could really only speak in cartoon theme songs.
No parent is perfect. But if if there was one thing that my dad has perfected, it’s the art of finding a silver lining, especially through tragedy. In Iran, he ran a juice factory, in Australia, he took pay cuts, drove taxis (now Uber) and somehow stayed resilient through all this.
That night, I watched as my father, after a long day’s work, painstakingly sit and attempt to glue my truck back together. The Japanese art of kintsugi is something I often hear referenced with regards to healing — like the mending of a broken vase with gold, creating beauty from despair. And though the concept largely lives on via the odd self-help book or Pinterest inspiration board, the care that Dad applied to the yellow toy truck reminded me of that.
For a long time, he sat in his pyjamas, newspaper laid down on our Persian rug, yellow bits of plastic strewn before him. In utter concentration, his spectacles hung low on his nose, a neutral frown.
It was fruitless. He too was aware that it resembled leftover cereal. But as I watched him attempt to fix my toy, I realised how much my father loved me. He couldn’t salvage it in the end — the glue wasn’t gold (gold wouldn’t have worked either). I never got to play with that yellow truck, but to this day it’s one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received.
*Names have been changed
