Those winter sundays

It is winter here, and already Sunday in the old country.

Nothing special, you might think.

There is something special.

My father's birthday.

One of his three birthdays.

Yes, you read that right.  Father has logical reasons to celebrate his birthday three times every year.

Why three birthdays?

He was born on the 26th.  But, perhaps the clerk at the school that he attended mistakenly recorded 28 instead of 26.  Given that back then the school records were the de facto documents for such data, well, all the official papers ever since his elementary school days have the 28th as the date of birth.

So, that is two birthdays. The third?

The desi readers of this blog know the answer, while those from my adopted country will wonder what tricks we people were/are up to.  The third one is based on the traditional lunar calendar, and I have no idea when that comes up.

You might then wonder why the title of the post is not something like "happy birthday, appa."  Well, I stole the title. From a poem. You will see why.

Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early 
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, 
then with cracked hands that ached 
from labor in the weekday weather made 
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he'd call, 
and slowly I would rise and dress, 
fearing the chronic angers of that house, 

Speaking indifferently to him, 
who had driven out the cold 
and polished my good shoes as well. 
What did I know, what did I know 
of love's austere and lonely offices?