What Does It Mean, Bliss?

“Bliss manee kee?” I asked baba. As he chuckled, Ma told me it meant “khushi” or happiness.

But as I stared up at the sign which screamed, “46th Street–Bliss” I couldn’t understand why anyone would name that clanking and screeching 7 train station after paradise.

In 1996, we moved from Woodside to Bellerose and traded the subway for a used Mazda. As the apartments & No Parking signs became single-family homes and Maple trees, there was finally enough silence for me to notice that my dad’s life had more in common with the 7 train we left behind.

He departed every morning, returned for maintenance every evening and took a lighter, local schedule on the weekends.

But there were sparks. His eyes lit up when explaining how he moved us to the one block that was physically still in Queens for taxes, but technically in Nassau County for schools.

There were embers. I did my homework in a living room that smelled like tobacco and coriander, a scent Creed could’ve bottled for $500/ml.

And there was lightning. In June, he smoked a full cigarette in the hospital visitors’ lounge. “Block the entrance. Nobody will know. Stop worrying, there’s a vent,” said the engineer.

On July 6th, I woke up in West Hollywood, wished my wife a happy birthday, then picked up my phone. That evening, I landed at JFK.

On July 9th, there were no more next steps. The hills on his monitor deflated to flatlands and green lines turned to ember.

I saw the look on his face.

This was a moment of Bliss.