My Dad&I..

I know, I know.. but new city, new life, new everything. It’s taking some getting used to but I believe I’m getting there.

This is a difficult post for me to write but I’ll try to find the words to somehow convey my thoughts. Some of my readers and my friends will testify to the fact that I rarely ever talk about my father. As eloquent as I am about my mother, I am very quiet about my dad because I guess that’s the way it has always been for me.

Growing up, the one feeling I associated with my father was fear. There was nobody I feared more than my dad, all I had to do was hear his voice and my heart would start to pound like crazy and I’d try to get out of his sight as quickly as possible. Somewhere deep inside me, I always wondered what the problem was, why it wasn’t as easy as it was with my mum but I never figured it out. I have always been a content person I think, I never waste time wanting what I can’t have but the one thing that filled me with jealousy was when I saw how my friends’ fathers treated them with love and obvious affection and how close they were and I’d want it so bad but it just never happened.

As a teenager, I became very troublesome and I was always in some form of trouble because that was the only way to get his attention, But after the spanking and the scolding, it was back to business as usual and after a while, I stopped caring and poured all my love and devotion into my mother. The older I got, the more that void deepened and although it didn’t hurt so badly anymore, it had dulled to a quiet, throbbing ache that just never went away. I longed for that validation from him you know? And I never got it. I’d go on social media and see brides dancing with their fathers and all sorts and the realization that It wasn’t in the cards for me was awful.

As I sit here writing this though, one memory comes to mind. Sometime in the 90s when my sister and I were in primary school, there was a riot near our school and it was really bad, there was chaos, people running and screaming, teargas, it was crazy. I remember running to my sister’s class and she and I huddled under the table together so afraid, when suddenly we heard our dad screaming our names. I poked my head through the window and saw my dad, barefoot, buttons undone running towards us as fast as he could. When he got to us, he put me astride his neck and carried my sister on his chest and he ran. He ran all the way home and he didn’t stop once. That’s probably my favorite memory ever of my dad and I’ll never forget it.

Sometimes I feel like it’s too late for he and I to have the relationship I always wanted because there’s just too much water under the bridge but looking back now, I think maybe he did the best he could. I don’t know what the future holds for us but for right now, I’ll hold on to that image of him running towards my sister and I, somehow it gives me some measure of peace and today; I am thankful that he is alive and looking up to God to restore his health completely.

I feel really vulnerable sharing this, still not sure why I did but I’m sure there is someone out there who maybe can relate to what I’m talking about. If you’re a father reading this, never run out of ways to show your baby girl how much you love her, be there, make a consistent effort to be present in her life, you will be saving her from a lot of heartache, trust me.

I also want to say a heartfelt thank you to a couple of people who reached out to me and wondered where I’d been. To you it might have just been a random message but to me? To me it was everything. Thank you!..