We choose not our Fathers but we choose the way we see them.
Today is a special day for the celebration of Fathers across the globe. Today we celebrate beyond their masculinity, strength or emotional rigidity, but also their tender heart, hardworking spirit and ability to successfully stagger ahead in times of tides and vortex, all for the upkeep and well being of their family, and society.
The society with the help of biology have exaggerated their hegemonic qualities and expectations, and they fall short whenever they meet not the set standard.
Growing up, I had the same preconceived notions instilled in me, and I perceived my father to be infallible, forgetting he is also human.
I once had a perverted view about fatherhood, and I would always share my experience with friends, who would in turn say nothing or little in coarse voices and utter frustration seconding my argument about fatherhood.
Deep down, I incubated fear laced with hatred for my father for giving me this sort of narrative, without the presence and warmth of my mom and siblings to caress or scold.
I had always acted in negligence to him in return for not giving me a home and a type of family I wanted and saw others enjoying. I would always blame him for the terrible mistakes I made in life, with the belief that, if he had been there, I would have done better.
I thought and acted on these feelings for many years, even as he struggled to catch my heart with gifts and attention, but it never changed my sentiments.
He made me drive his first car when I was about fifteen, but that never changed my feelings toward him. I had gone ahead of myself, planned my revenge.
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But, recently, few years back, after a long period of bitter malice; and internal fury, my views started changing towards him. Not because of gifts, cars, money, but because I am growing into a father.
I am seeing the inconsistencies in life; utter frustration of mankind; inevitable gripping hands of fate; politics; power of religion and most importantly, the failing nature of human and the power of the mind.
All of these seems to have given me a new heart towards him, I see him as I see myself. I feel the pains in his past, happiness in the present and the hope he has in the future.
Last month, we went to church together, and I sat far away from him. I watched him dance.
Yesterday, as the songs were sung again, I began to dance like him.
Little Junior, the way you would perceive me is your choice. However, like my father, I will be present with strength and love in face of whirlwinds.
I will hold on to God steady in righteousness, build a legacy filled with wisdom, wealth and riches for you.
Invest patiently but strategically so as to give you a world filled with opportunities. I will enlarge the place of my tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of my habitations; I will lengthen my cords and strengthen my stakes.
I will rewrite the narrative before you are given birth to, and when you come, you can learn from me, and make new set of mistakes, cause have shattered the constituted pattern.
Kunle Daramola.
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