Living in the village midway between the lofty mountain grandeau and the deep blue ocean gave little notice of the fact that there was no daddy to come home too! The time spent stealing away from and running through the bushes to meet up with the guys to go playing soccer or to swim or to pick wild sea grapes never once allowed me the luzury of the wonder of coming back home to a dad.
Yeah somehow today I remember those moments when I knew the cost to my already tender behind if too much of the day was stolen from my grands at home; the leer of soccer in the scotching sun with my buddies was far greater than a few strokes that I soon learn to evade through some clever orchestrations. Yeah, all the dishes were washed, the front and backyard cleaned to perfection, and the vegetables watered, the fowls feed...who dare beat me for that extra hour on the soccer field?
At evenings I yearned for company of the type that could share my day's exploits; that did not happen! I look on at my friends and often wondered what it was like to have a moment to share what they had. I often smiled when I had to go at their homes - a moment to encounter a moment of hearing the voice of a father...even if at those moments the voices boom at my friends' escapades with me...where you come out? The shared meal, the scolding, the order for incomplete yard work, the question of incomplete homework, the request for assistance in gardenwork, i was exposed to it all but never had the experience of these cherished moments emmitting from what I've learn today...my own personal dad.
So as today arises at the foremorn i sit and ponder on what it takes to draw out those boyhood yearnings and give my own boys a glimspe into life as a boy. I am tempted to cook a heavy breakfast for them and to drive around sharing with them my own inner yearnings and the little special acts I would involve myself to steal a glimpse of it. The moments I use to say thank God I do not have a Dad when I would assist my best friend escape a night thrashing or to give him a space to sleep because his Dad locked him out....I would wish to have no Dad at other moments when my other friend did not show in school because he went out to the Banana fields to assist his dad.
Still the years of boyhood, deprived yearning at times experiencing the dread of none. seem more overwhelming than I could bear that it did not take long to develop the art of pretending that it was ok not to have a dad, that it was no problem and that I could live without that which I really desired in my heart...the presence of a dad. Those were the days.
Today I feel privileged...the years of longings have now turned around...I experience in a very profound manner that same desire portrayed and relived in my own children. I would see Kahil for reasons unbeknown, drop his activity find me whether am asleep, in the washroom, walking by ...it matters not....he would inch himself infront or grab unto a leg and without a word at a moments notice just grab a hug....I have to always immediately drop my guard, whatever am involved with or doing at the moment and just give a hug....and so I relive my boyhood!
Yes am aware that its moments like these that truly defines us; we are given the opportunity to recognize that as we yearn for what we always wanted in life, God finds a way to have us experience it when we least expect but when it is most needed. Looking back I can only see that the need to be a dad is far more critical much more important more needed that the need to be fathered. I have come to believe that if we as dads out there in the world trully understand the nobel gift of service that we are called to render outwardly extending ourselves to be, we will never have the experience of knowing and feeling that joy that sense of freedom that childlike emptiness that sanity, the humility oozing out of our life as Dads!
Having not the initial burden of a nine-month wait; having not the pain of the unknown outcome; having not our own lives threatened by possible loss at child birth; knowing not what the next day would bring and the long art of drawing unto those many demands, nursing caring cooking nuturing and naturing....we dads often miss out on lifes splendor in an unliken manner to our children's mums. Incomparable I say.
Yet to our children we are no mere bystanders; our presence draws a spirited, mysterious and extremely benign outlook and influence on our children. We err if we underestimate it; their tomorrows are better with a dad's guide most of all his silence...Yes guys, for it is in our silence we learn to do what we would not naturally do....that which does not come in our nature...the art of listening!
Yes I say again...to my father friends let today be of meaning to you and all your children...give then that which we as children ourselves almost always wanted: the undivided, unbiased, readily available and non-judgemental ear of men who care enough to just listen!
As for me as I look back at what I wanted most in my own childhood days....I can only be but a guy whose call at any given moment is to be an EARFULL for my own princes and princesses that God has blessed me with: Yes Kharleen, Karhmalee, Jhe-Vaughn, Kahmila, Karhmeron and Kahil I pray that God will allow me to be no less than a gracefilled dad to you all till death do us part.
I love being you all Daddy!
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