I often dream that my father is taking us on a tour of the island we come from. The sky is an ethereal blue and the lagoon a shimmering reflection. Eventually, our red Peugeot somehow brings us right to the edge of the water. Then, as these dreams always go, my father drives straight into the sea, our car strangely buoyant. It is a little scary as I can feel the ocean tugging us this way, that way, anywhere except to the side where land awaits us. Still, this remains a wonderful moment for me as the sea is endless and full of surprises. Such is the dream that I visit when I am uncertain of myself; such is my state when I wish for wisdom.

The stars had already sprung out in the sky by the time I was packing up. At first, they passed unnoticed to me, preoccupied as I was deciding which papers I should take home for “pleasure-reading” over the break. Eventually, taking a deep breath, I stopped and looked outside at the beautiful Toronto skyline. The CN Tower glowed green much like a Christmas tree. I stood and watched Toronto sparkling, glittering like a palace, a million stars dazzling me. What a sight! If we went in orbit about the Earth, Toronto would shimmer as a carpet of light. December might be a period of cheer and celebration but at that moment, looking out the window, thinking of photons and space travel, I felt a pang of unidentifiable origin.

I shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts. How about making myself some coffee before heading home? Coffee after all is the answer to all the woes of the world…right? Or what if I put my head on my desk for just a tiny second…millisecond…

I woke up suddenly and was utterly confused for I was elsewhere! It was so sunny and bright that there was no denying that yes, absolutely yes, I was on a tropical island! I appeared to be sitting close to the sea, basking in the sun. And why not? The sky was so blue it brought a new angle to the definition of azure. The lagoon was incredibly clear and calm, shimmering with the reflection of the sun. As can be expected, I did not spare even a moment to wonder at my capacity to navigate to a different time zone. Instead, I allowed myself an impossibly big smile and unconsciously started humming a song about never giving up. Then, I heard a chuckle behind me. I turned and was momentarily taken aback. An elderly man stood behind me, his back straight as an arrow. He was wearing a fedora tipped tastefully to the side. Smiling like the sun was my paternal grandfather. He rarely smiled, but when he did, there was reason for celebration. True to tradition, I was ecstatic. “Have a seat Grandpa! I haven’t seen you in so long!”

Grandpa leisurely came forward and sat down next to me on the beach. I noticed how he smoothed the pleats of his pants as he sat down, how he carefully wiped his hands with a handkerchief to clear them of sand: this was definitely him. The last time I had seen him was eight years ago. Back then, I was a child, and the world was simple, at least to me. The world was either black or white; there was never any grey. I had been full of self-righteousness, deciding that there was only one right way to proceed in life.

“Last time I saw you, Di, you were still reading Harry Potter!” Grandpa said with a twinkle in his eye. I grinned fondly at the memory. “Yes, I was,” I replied. “I wished I were a witch, and that I could fly on a broomstick!” I also remembered that I used to wish I were in Slytherin, but managed to confine the thought to myself.

“When I myself was a kid, my dreams were very different.” Grandpa’s life had not been easy. His parents had been barely able to afford basic amenities like food, and his formal education had stopped too early. Still, I had always been proud of my grandfather, mostly because of his perseverance despite all the hurdles that would come along his way. After serving in the army, he came back home and became an entrepreneur, growing and harvesting his own sugarcane fields. And on top of that, my grandfather was incredibly gifted: he had the mental capacity to perform complex mathematical calculations in mere fractions of a second, and he had taught himself Hindi to keep his own business records. I often wonder what else he could have achieved had he been given the resources I had been provided with. What dreams would such a man not have?

It was a long while before Grandpa spoke again. “But eventually, I started to dream of magic, just like you.” Grandpa nodded seriously at me. “I imagined that my Ju and Di were somewhere else studying magic, and that gave me peace at the end.” “…and it brought me peace to think that you were resting somewhere in a magical world,” I thought, a lump annoyingly stuck in my throat. I had been writing letters ever since he had left us, finding consolation in the idea that the words might be going from my pen to another world, that the paper was actually a portal.

“Well, Grandpa,” I added after allowing myself a brief moment of recuperation, “I deal with the dark arts all the time! When the code I write produces infinite loops, when my simulations fail to reproduce what a human being would expect, when I wait for results for two whole days and get nothing, I go on top of the PGCRL and cackle maniacally while lighting strikes all around me most dramatically.” My grandfather gave me such a serious look that I found myself reprimanding my sense of humour. But then I saw the tiniest fraction of a smile tugging on the left of his face. I figured I could have made more jocular statements after that but somehow I decided to let the opportunity pass in favour of the truth.

“There are times when I am frustrated and want to quit, but for some reason I keep going…because every once in a while there is a moment of clarity, and those moments make my work worth it. There is beauty in how everything seems to make sense at the end. And the nicest part is that you can never know everything. There is always another mystery!” I hesitated with my next words but I felt that Grandpa would understand. “The uncertainty is great and almost reassuring, you know? Imagine knowing everything, being certain of everything…What pleasure is there from knowing that the results will always make sense? It’s like this dream I’ve been having, that we drive into the middle of the ocean. I love having that dream! It’s thrilling to be unanchored at sea! And yet…Do you think I am getting on well? I enjoy my work but sometimes I worry that I am like a ship on the verge of sinking. The uncertainty is sometimes scary.”

It was hard to admit self-doubt. I tried to distract myself by focusing on a playful wave tumbling freely then crashing incredibly gently upon the fine sandy shores. Grandpa’s eyes were fixed far out into the horizon. “I could say that you need to trust in yourself. But I think you’ve heard that so much that you won’t pay great attention to me if I say so.” I opened my mouth to protest but Grandpa’s suddenly stern eyes stopped me. “I felt the same insecurity when I was your age,” he continued. “I started growing my own sugarcane fields in harsh conditions. And afterwards, the harvest was not always good…and there was that time the fields caught fire…I was unsure of myself all the time but the truth is, if I had given up, my family would have starved. And I could not have that. The only way was to go forward, full thrust. It is okay to doubt yourself every once in a while. In fact, it is probably better than thinking that your way is always the right way.” His voice drifted, and then, broke the tension with these unexpected words: “I caught fear in my left hand and embraced courage with my right arm.”

I blushed. “That was a line from that terrible poem I wrote ages ago. I was hoping it would get buried in a place where no one would ever find it!”

“If you do not want a secret to ever be revealed, then don’t tell it to anyone…not even yourself,” he said very seriously, quoting again my younger self. Then, suddenly, we both burst into laughter. There is a certain relief that can only be brought by laughing at one’s younger self. Perhaps I would laugh at myself again in the future?

“We miss you, Grandpa,” I said in between laughs, throwing my arms around him. He patted me on the back, and when we stood up, placed his hands on my shoulders like a general talking to his best soldier, or like the last humans sending their best astronaut into space. “Listen Di: you’re my granddaughter. Whatever you do, you’ll make me proud. Never be ashamed of who you are.”

And that was how it ended. Just like that. One moment I was musing on the shores of an island, the next I was seated in an ergonomic chair in front of a dark monitor. When had I sat down? When had I turned off my computer? I wiped the sleep from my eyes and felt the barest hint of … moisture. Time to go. I got up and left the papers in a pile next to my keyboard. I ventured a last look at the family picture on my desk. There I was, aged five with my sister holding my left hand, my parents behind me and my grandparents at my sides. I smiled and I left. A new year would await me when I came back.

Originally published in the December 2015 issue of the SickKids Training Post