Today is exactly 22 years to the day my father passed away, but I can still remember that morning as if it were yesterday. It was a morning filled with fear and uncertainty when we got that phone call from the hospital. As the day unfolded, many events played out, most of them best left unmentioned.
For most of my life when my father was alive, I never had a good relationship with him. This was mainly because I wanted him to be what I thought he should be. I used to hate him with a passion and I harbored these feelings for many years. being young, naive, and uneducated, I was unable to understand the man he was, and the circumstances that made him the person he was. I only saw all the negative aspects of his personality and focused on them entirely.
Looking back now, after all these years, I can now see how wrong I was in judging him for things he was not responsible for. Life was not good to him as a child growing up without the love and protection of a family. He endured years of abuse at the hands of relatives and villagers who took advantage of the fact that he was fatherless, and without a mother for most of his young life. He was worked hard and given food and nothing else. Even when he eventually lived with his mother in his early teens, the abuse continued. By this time he was scared physically and emotionally for life. These are just the surface of what he endured and some of the events that shaped his life as a young man.
After years of abuse, he could only react to what he had learned all those years. Eventually he fought back the only way he knew how, with violence. By the time he got married and had children, he did not know how to love and provide for them because he was never loved and provided for all his life. As children, we experienced his anger and violence over the years. I was fortunate to be spared much of that because I was very young. From those early years of my life, I can recall very little, but I do remember when the turning point came in my father's life, and as a result, in our family as well.
Both my parents became Christians when I was around nine years old and I can still remember that night. There was an immediate change in my father. He went from being an angry and violent man, to being a father who did his best to provide for his family the best way he knew how. The first thing he did was to begin building a proper house for us to live in. He was a hard worker and with his lead, we practically built our house on our own. He provided food, shelter, and clothing for us, basic necessities we never really had before.
During my early teenage years, I never saw the good in him. I was a confused teenager who wanted to experience life and felt restricted by my father. During this time, all my feelings of hatred and anger toward my father resurfaced and I wanted to get away from him as much as possible. When I was sixteen, I became a christian and my life, as well as my point of view changed drastically. I began for the first time, to see my father in a new light. I slowly began to understand him and what he had been through, and those events that had shaped his life and personality.
I saw him as my father who loved me and provided for me. I realized he did not really know how to show that love because he himself had never been showed love. In the next few years, i began to appreciate him for the change he had made in his life, and for the tremendous effort he was making to be the father he wanted to be.
I wanted to tell him that I loved him but I never knew how. I came close many times but I never did. I just did not know how. When my father died, I was filled with regret because I never showed my feelings for him. I never let him know how much I appreciated him, how much I admired him, how much, in many ways, I wanted to be like him, strong, confident, and proud. I wish I could turn back time and tell him I appreciate him for being my father, and for all he did, and tried to do for us. It is my single biggest regret to this day and something I have to live with for the rest of my life.
Today, at this point in my life, I wish he could see me and know how far I have come in life. I wish he could know that I am back in school and on my way to graduating from college. I wish he could know that I think of him and all that he went through in his short life. I wish he could be here to celebrate my life with me, to experience my joys and triumphs, to look at me and tell me he is proud of me. I can only wish.
Today I remember my father.
