“Now the words are over and the pain they bring is gone. Now you have gone to rest in the arms of the Beloved”. My father named me after 'Princess Tahmina', the Princess of kingdom of Samangan who married the Persian hero Rostam and whose life was essentially a tragedy! I used to dislike my name in my childhood and throughout my teen age years so much that once or twice I requested Abbu to change my name. I even thought of giving me a new name! Now my father is not here anymore, and only now I understand what I was to him...a PRINCESS! I remember those days...I was 10 /12, we had been living in Shariatpur (a suburban area) and I used to come to Dhaka with Abbu often. Dhaka was like a big maze to me with its huge high rises and hundreds, thousands alleys and dead-end alleys. I was so scared of getting lost that I used to hold Abbu's fingers so tight as if I would forever be lost if I did not do so! How horrified I was even with the thought of being alone in a big, big city without my father! And now it’s been almost a year I'm alone, alone, all all alone in this big world...and such is life! Abbu, you know, I know and everybody else knows, you could be a millionaire, or even a billionaire if you just wanted, if you just agreed to compromise with your ideology. Chances were there, open in the air, for you; but you let them slip away. You did not compromise. You showed the world how a man can live through hardship; yet not sell his soul to the devil. With your honest, hard earned limited income (though you were a Director in the Department of Fisheries ,Bangladesh Government) you raised all of us. Not only us, you raised your siblings too. Now two of your kids are doctors, one is a university teacher (the youngest one will be somebody someday too, if Allah wants). Abbu, all your children are still on the right track (don’t know what will happen next). Because of you and Amma and your selfless efforts and a life time of sacrifice we are ‘us’ today. But when you were alive, I couldn’t tell you how much I love you .I didn’t even understand then what you had been to me. Rather I was angry with you. Yes, let me confess today, Abbu, I had been angry; very angry with you for some time. Because you never thought of your own interest, you loved your siblings and relatives blindly, you loved them more than anything. And they had betrayed you in every possible way; they had broken your heart into thousands pieces; that is how they had repaid your sacrifice of a lifetime. And still you didn’t say a thing; you couldn’t believe that your blood could betray you thus. You couldn’t stop loving them; and you paid the price. Today I won’t tell how though. Abbu, I still couldn’t undo the wrongs done to you. But one day I will, I promise. We couldn’t refrain you from believing them; believing in their sugar-coated lies. Instead, I stopped talking to you, for a while; because I became blind too-in my anger. I thought we were not your top priority. I forgot you were the only man who once created a home for us; the only home I’ve known since I was born. In my utter angst, I forgot that you were the only man who sacrificed every single luxury to see us established and yet you never compromised with the way of the world. Yes, Abbu, I forgot you- the only man who loved us all with all his love and did not get anything in return. And then, all on a sudden, you disappeared. So suddenly that you gave me no chance to say sorry; you gave us no chance to prove how much we really care for you. Abbu, when you died, a part of me died with you. And only then I understood what you had been to me and you still are for me. I have never missed you like this when you were alive. I've never even understood your absence might make me a cripple. Abbu, I still remember the times I hurt you. I remember the times I had been fighting with you. But I was young and I was wrong. Now let me tell you one thing today; I am my father’s daughter. I have a pledge to you; I have a dream from you and one day I will make you proud of me.