The Toolbox My Father Left Behind

What I learned about love after losing the man who could fix anything.

Vijay Joseph Fernandes was not a materialistic man…and it showed.

At the end of his life, Vijay Joseph Fernandes hadn’t amassed much material. There was no property in his name, no gold in a locker nor a lot of money in his bank account.

But what he did have was a toolbox.

A mandarin orange aluminum tool box filled to the brim with the most comprehensive set of tools I’ve ever seen.

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Ever since I was a little girl, I coveted the contents of my father’s toolbox — which was stashed underneath my parent’s bed in our one-bedroom apartment in Karama.

“These are not toys!”

My father’s admonishments were as severe as they were tempting; he would see me eyeing his toolbox with curiosity. With each warning of how ‘dangerous’ it would be to play with his hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers… my eyes grew bigger. Forbidden fruit…always tastes the sweetest.

While my father was out at work and my mother busy in the kitchen, I’d sneakily make my way to my parent’s bed. Sitting cross-legged on the faded thread-bare blue carpet, I’d blindly flail my outstretched arms into the darkness under their bed.

Until finally, my little hands found the cool stainless steel box and its curved metal handles. Then, using all the limited strength in my five-year-old body, I would tug on the handles of that orange tool box…like a triumphant fisherman.

Tug. Tug. Tug.

Till eventually, I got the toolbox out into the open with roguish glee.

The cantilever orange toolbox had two layers of retractable trays which expanded out in opposite directions when opened. I delighted in seeing this otherwise narrow aluminum box expand into a universe unto itself… having its own Big-Bang moment every time it emerged from under the bed.

From mini-screwdrivers, Alan keys, plyers, adjustable wrenches, rip claw hammers to a wide assortment of nuts, bolts, washers and other little silver bittybots… it was the ultimate cornucopia of metallic and wooden implements.

And I loved it.

With the tool box opened, that’s when the real game would begin.

It wasn’t a game of imagination, competence or efficiency. It was just a game of defiance. Of rebellion. Soo… I wasn’t supposed to touch these “dangerous” tools, is it? Well, well, well. How dangerous could it be? I’d fiddle with each tool restlessly like a baby chimp.

Bang! Bang! Twang! Twiddle! Fiddle. Fiddle. Fiddle.

My favorite tool was the magnetic double head slotted cross retractable screwdriver.

Of course, I didn’t know it by its ‘official’ name. I knew the screwdriver by its amber translucent base which was home to different interchangeable blades. The retractable head provided the most curious sensation when I rammed it repeatedly into the carpet and then onto my skin.

Slam. Slam. Slam.

The blade would retract into itself on every impact, only to emerge when I released it. Like magic. Then, I would raise the screwdriver into the air; enraptured by the way the sunlight seemed to glow like fire in the amber glass. I would shake the screwdriver maniacally, listening to the other heads in its base jangling, clanging about thoroughly enjoying my glorified heavy-duty rattle.

Over and over and over again… until finally, my curiosity was satiated for the day. Then, I’d returned each tool to the toolbox precisely as I found them.

This was no mean feat — especially for a five-year-old, because my father had a lot of tools. And he was meticulous with his organization, he would notice if even a single flatheaded precision silver screwdriver was out of place.

He took care of those tools and even at five-years-old, I knew it.

We ALL knew it. My father’s toolbox had a reputation amongst our community in Dubai. My Uncles and cousin brothers would often drop by our house, asking with confidence, if my father “had this specific drill, washer or nut?”

Of course, my father had the tools.

Of course, he would go to his toolbox, fish out the specific implements and return to the living with a smile and instructions for the inquiring relative.

And of course, whoever borrowed his tools knew to always return it — because they knew how precious they were to him.

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My eldest sister, Clea (left) and second sister, Rhea (right) on either side of Dad, with me, BabySisterEva in the centre (where I belong;).

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A Different Kind Of Education

As his three daughters grew closer to their teenage years, Vijay Joseph Fernandes was keen on imparting a mechanical education whenever he was working on projects in the house.

“This is an Alan Key. What is it?”

“This is a nut. This is a washer. This goes here. And that goes there.”

On and on and on.

My father began to give us these impromptu lessons any time he had that orange toolbox out…which seemed to be all the time. We rarely had handy men come to our house, because Dad could figure out what needed to be done. And how to do the job well. He wanted to teach us not just how to use the tools but how to do a good job with job. Not to take short-cuts or do shoddy work.

Because, when my father worked on a project at home, it was with concentration, precision and efficiency. He worked as if he was getting paid to do the work — embodying the ethos of the adage: “if a job is worth doing. It is worth doing well.” With impeccable calculations churning in his mind, a spirit level in his hand and his tools arranged neatly beside him, he worked until the job was finished.

Vijay Joseph Fernandes’ instruction found varying success with each of his children.

My eldest sister, Clea, took to my father’s instructions naturally.

From a young age, she accompanied him on the house projects. Handing him tools. Holding the ladder. Placing the vacuum cleaner under the drill to catch the fly-away concrete. Later in life, Clea was the one doing the work in our house, with my father holding the ladder and giving her instructions as he watched with silent pride.

My second sister, Rhea, was less involved in the Home-Fixers team — but she was born with fiddly fingers and a mechanical mind. Rhea could take something apart and figure out how to put it back together easily. She didn’t know the names of the tools, but intuitively could figure out what needed to go where by trial and error.

And then. There was me.

My interest in tools unfortunately hadn’t matured beyond my five-year-old proclivity for indiscriminate rattling.

I had ZERO interest in the tools.

Zero interest in learning the names. Zero interest in learning the technique.

What I did enjoy doing was bringing my Father a beverage while he was working.

Dad would take a break from his work to drink the juice or water I bought him. He would show me the spirit level and how to ensure your work was balanced — I would listen to him, taking the tool into my hand and making the little bubble of air bounce about in the green liquid on either side like a kind of analogue Nintendo. Way more fun than double-checking your measurements.

I would often press a tissue onto Dad’s forehead while he was working because my father tended to sweat profusely. Within minutes of a job, his bald head would be gleaming with tiny transparent beads of perspiration. I often fancied myself a Modern Day Mary Magdalene, as I took tissue upon tissue to task. I loved to see how the white tissue coagulated into mush as my father eventually wiped his face, smiling at me for my support services.

His smiles did little to intrigue me into the world of the tools — but that didn’t stop him from trying to get me involved.

One Christmas, my father gifted each of his daughters a pocket-sized toolbox. It had a small selection of screwdrivers and other bittybots. I remember tearing off the wrapping paper with a sense of disappointment and confusion. What on earth was I supposed to do with this? I regret my response now, because I understand the precious sentimentality of that moment. My father was giving us the first tools for us to start our own toolboxes — a genuinely beautiful gesture.

But in that moment, I couldn’t appreciate the toolbox.

Because the truth is, I had no need to learn how to use any tools because…

MY FATHER COULD FIX ANYTHING.

Seriously.

Even the puppies couldn’t resist the appeal of the toolbox. BuBu, my Aunty Jilly’s little Yorkie peering as my father riffled through the screws with his trademarked chopped index finger.

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The Phenomenon Of The Fix-It-Fairy

My father was a man of significant mechanical prowess and imagination.

In the 1990s, Dad would spend his evenings inventing mechanical contraptions in our balcony.

In particular, he was working on inventing a prototype of a wash-basin which could be operated through pedals at its base. He hoped to sell his concept to the freemarket but unfortunately he was unsucesful. He didn’t find buyers and the invention stayed in our balcony for a decade gathering dust. More than 25 years later, a similar faucet was being sold in the mainstream during the COVID era, when touching taps were shunned for fear of contagion. A few months before he died, I told my father he was ‘ahead of his time’ and he laughed.

Although, he had little success with the world of entrepreneurism — his engineering skills was still in high demand albeit for very different kinds of projects in the 2000s.

My mother, sisters and I would come to him with broken necklaces, earrings, high heels and a look of fervent beseeching: “Can you fix this, Dad?”

Of course, he could.

Of course, he would.

Dad took these fashion engineering projects just as seriously as he took fixing broken pipes or furniture

He would go to that mandarin orange toolbox and fish out all the tools he would need for the job. Then he would neatly lay out all the pieces of jewelry analyzing the links and the kinks in the chain. After he had worked his magic, the recovering high-heels or earrings would firmly be jammed in his heavy-duty vice…with a firm warning “Not to touch it for at least 24 hours!”

Fix-It-Fairy, was the name my sister, Rhea, invented for the phenomenon in our house. We could place broken things on Dad’s desk and presto like magic, the Fix-It-Fairy would emerge at night time and mend it all!

My father chuckled when I told him about his new moniker. He shook his head, urging me to become my own Fix-It-Fairy. I fussed back as the classic BabySisterEva I’ve always been, and seemed to get off the hook from any further mechanical training.

But, things changed when I got my driver’s license.

My father repeatedly insisted on teaching me how to maintain a car; how to change a tire and check the oil.

“Buttha, are you watching me? This is the oil stick…”

My father would look at me with a pained expression on his face as I spent most of my car education time wiping my hands.

I’d wink back in jest.

“Daddy! Everything is covered in grease and I just got my nails done!”

My father got the joke but he wasn’t discouraged. He continued to try to teach me — “Because what would you do if it broke down while you were in the middle of nowhere?”

With the most indulgent smile, I fussingly would retort:

“I’ll call you Dad…”

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Left, My Grandfather, Valentine Fernandes with my father. Right: Before the Baldness. A young Vijay Fernandes with his trademark Widow’s Peak that I’ve inherited.

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The Car Is Making Strange Noises…

I’m aware that the caricature I seem to be painting of myself is of a careless brat who wants “Daddy” to solve her problems. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Like my sisters, I too took on a fair share of responsibility to support the family. I studied hard at school and took on three jobs at university. As soon as I could, I got two additional jobs outside of my 9 to 5 as a journalist so I too could support the household financially and in every way I could. I wanted to help fix the things I knew I could. I wanted to help with the things my parents couldn’t or hadn’t.

And I did. We all did.

It’s just that, when it came to the tools from that orange toolbox, I didn’t want to learn.

I didn’t want to learn how to fix things…because I had my father.

And I liked that.

I liked that I had a man in my life who could fix anything with his tools from his orange toolbox.

I liked that I could come home and say: “the car is making strange noises”… and know with confidence the thing would be fixed. And it would be fixed well.

I liked that I didn’t have to figure this part of life out. That there was this one aspect of my life where I could still be a child…well into my late twenties.

In fact, I was almost 30-years-old when I had purchased a tripod that was proving difficult to assemble. At this point, I was traveling the world. I could no longer just leave the broken pieces on my dad’s table waiting for the Fix-It-Fairy to emerge.

But.

But, I could still call my father who was now living in Bengaluru.

On a video call, I whined in frustration, as I showed him all the pieces of the tripod lying on my hotel bed.

My father screwed his face in concentration. Looking closer and closer into his screen, he started to point at different pieces and give me instructions.

“Take that. Put it there. Not there. Here. Okay now take this. Screw this. Unscrew that.”

He stayed with me on that call until “we” fixed the tripod.

I say ‘we’ but really it was He who fixed it.

The truth is, even though the years had rolled on, even though we no longer lived together, I still could rely on my father for these kinds of conversations. And it is such a privilege. For those of us lucky enough to have a man like Vijay Joseph Fernandes in our lives, we knew the stability and dependability of what a good man can bring to a woman’s life.

I loved the confidence, the love, the certainty he gave me by being that Fix-It-Fairy Father.

When he wasn’t tinkering with tools, my father was a deep thinker, avid reader, excellent conversationalist and card-player.

*

Two years ago today. My father died.

Unexpectedly.

I had spoken to him fourteen hours before he passed and was looking forward to visiting him in June after the season of COVID had kept us apart.

I gave the eulogy at my father’s funeral, telling five stories which exemplified the man he was to me. The “Fix-It-Fairy” featured in only one anecdote because my father was a multi-dimensional man. He was an incredible conversationalist, he enjoyed a good game of cards and he had penchant for critical thinking which bordered on conspiratorial mania towards the end.

In the shock and heartbreak of losing my father, I soon began to realize — his death also meant the death of the phenomenon of the Fix-It Fairy in my life.

The memory of that orange tool box resurfaced compulsively as I realized just how much comfort having my father around subconsciously gave me. This is the gift of grief. Death will helps you recontextualize. See people in a different way. Understand the things differently.

As I struggled to accept his death, the metaphor of my father’s orange toolbox became more poignant over time.

The decade-long resentment I had felt towards my father for failing to provide us with material wealth and financial stability started to fade as I’ve reflected on all the other things my father gave us. As I began to ask myself that question: what really matters at the end of it all?

Not every young girl has the security of a Fix-It-Fairy in her life.

Not every young girl is given a mandatory mechanical education for the first three decades of her life.

And not every young girl gets the privilege of seeing a man fix her stuffed toys, earrings, necklaces, high heels, watches and tripods.

My father was the first man who loved me.

He was the first man who thought I was beautiful, intelligent and capable. He was the first man who challenged me to grow, to shine and to smile.

For this and so much more, the pain I feel on this day is unforgivably intense.

Two years on. The realization that Vijay Joseph Fernandes is actually dead hits harder. Anyone who has experienced death-related grief knows the truth of how much different the pain is with each passing year.

Memories swim in the bereaved’s mind compulsively and uncontrollably as your soul struggles to understand how someone who was always around…is no longer alive. Don’t ask me what’s going on. I still don’t have a clue. Still…

It is a reality that I am coming to terms with.

Every.

Single.

Day.

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Vijay Joseph Petrotta, my father’s namesake and grandson, playing with toy tools in his home in California, earlier this year.

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A Job Worth Doing…

Last month, I was cooking dinner. I realized the handle of my frying pan was unforgivably loose. The handle had been wobbling for weeks. Every time I had to use it, the handle had gotten more and more slack.

It didn’t occur to me that I could fix the frying pan handle because historically, I had never faced this issue in my life. The Fix-It-Fairy had always kept the knives sharp, the handles screwed in and the hinges greased. Magically.

But now, I couldn’t ignored the lopsided handle which slumped at a dangerous incline on the stovetop.

I stuck my face close to the point where the handle met the pan. I saw a tiny black cross embossed into a shiny silver screw.

Immediately, I had a vision of a small pocket sized Philips screwdriver with a slotted head and a striped base. Yes, THAT would be the screwdriver perfect for this job.

Alas.

I did not have a fully-stocked toolbox on hand…I didn’t even have a single tool in my house. I looked around my kitchen and my eyes found a blunt butterknife sleeping innocently on the countertop.

Wincing a little thinking of what a Fix-It-Fairy may say if he was looking down on me, I picked up the butter knife.

I shoved the knife into the head of the screw.

Twist.

Twist.

Twist.

The handle stood erect. Unmovable. Firm.

I twisted the butterknife one more time, just to be sure…because a job worth doing…is worth doing well.

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In loving remembrance of my Father,

Vijay Joseph Fernandes

Jan 13 1949 — May 18 2022