Fathers’ Day Special

To my old chap, my dad, to all dads... and to God as the best father I’ve ever had...

Two songs I do dedicate to you:

1. Joel Engle’s ‘The Father I Never Had’ – to all of us who have never seen or had an experience with our mortal dads and;
2. Phillips, Craig and Dean’s ‘I Want to be Just Like You’ – to all of us who seek to emulate God as our eternal Father...

Dude! There are times I wonder what kind of father I will be. I always wonder like that because I realize that I’m growing old really fast. Just the other day I was 18. OK, let me start like this: just the other day, I was a baby. A baby. I should not imagine me being a baby. Dude! I should not. My dad used to call me with another name I may never tell you so soon. But I remember it anyway. I also remember how he used to call it out. I grew up riding horses (take that for being made old before your time). Sadly (or gladly also) I remember how he used to spank me to instil discipline in this messed up boy. And speaking of being messed up, boy I was. I was a real mess. From age 7 I already had known how to jump out of windows to escape punishment at school. I was a serial thief, a liar, a stone-thrower – all at the age of 7 – 10.

How would you feel if your only son is as messy as I was at an early age? It would only tell you that he will be the worst son a father can ever have. It is to indicate that you are a failing father. So to make his mark on my life, the old chap really used to work on my body. And I deserved it, I guess. I deserved it because being a lad and you don’t sleep at home for 2 days, you make technical appearances only to steal and potea again, you have several cases people have reported of you here and there was just bad. Weird. I was this lad who would steal and go out to gamble (that should have been when I was 12), watch a few movies, buy stuff... and just disappear from home. Breathe. Breathe again. Good.
Let me paint for you the picture of how it really is (and really was) having my dad around... Here we go...
Dude! My early life was spent running away from my dad. I didn’t like meeting him one-on-one. Nope. I think I really never liked him that much then as compared to my soft-spoken mum. The guy was a tyrant. A real one for sure. If he spotted me in the night after my escapades, I would face the music sung by his special mshipi that was entirely customized for my dorsal to anterior parts. I would cry. But in vain. Not even my mom would sooth the wrath of that old guy... And the drama went on and on, and on...

So my growing up distancing myself from him somehow worried him. I could see it in his eyes when I was in high school (and then I had grown into an innocent wreck... into a guy who talked less and operated under the MYOB code.) It scared him somehow. I think he feared that he was losing me. He feared that he may never reach me anymore. I was too demanding and a lil bit overlaid. Being the only son somehow spoils you... But he never allowed me to get spoilt. Thank you dad, because if you had, I would really be spoilt today. Thank you because in my adolescent days you allowed me to ‘mind my own business’ but under control. You allowed me to do my thing but not beyond boundaries. You talked to me somehow. And I answered back because of the ka-feeling of growing up. You knew that that is how boys behave when they want to informally tell you that their voices have changed from soprano-ish to tenor-bass-ish. You knew that I no longer wished to be told everything to be done. You allowed me to make decisions on my own, knowing that they will shape where I went. I am thankful that to today you allow me that freedom...

To make you understand a few things, my dad hana bro. Na mimi pia sina bro. I am like his bro kind-of. We are brothers kind-of. This dude is the tightest dude I’ve ever met. I am always wondering if I will ever be like my dad. He has shown me courage in many ways. He has shown me that you don’t beat up a lady (or a woman in any case) to make her see sense in what you are saying. He has taught me that you don’t prove points by yelling at people. The more the old chap has grown old, the calmer he has become. Of course there were days he used to make lots of noise. And I think it was rightfully so. He then had 5 naughty daughters and one filthy son – if it were you, what would you do, huh? I guess you would prove points by showing them you (and not them) are the man of the house. You would show them in words and in action. Man!

And about him and my mother, and for as long as I’ve known him, he has never laid a hand on her in the name of beating her. He has never insulted her. He has allowed her to sit him down and straighten a few things (because that always happens with marriage I suppose) but he has not allowed himself f to be controlled by his anger. When angry at her, as I would see, he would match out and chill off; only to return later and ask for food and after that – it’s bed time baby! BTW, I was telling one of my friends that until the day I was living with them a few years ago, he still called her ‘darling’ to our hearing – not in privacy but to the openness of our ears! Dude! Breathe again...

My dad has taught me that women should be loved (I know he loves my mom) and that the only way to be right sometimes is by allowing yourself to become wrong. He has allowed himself to be vulnerable (I think I took part of that to myself) by talking about his early days when he was my age – of how he acquired a Muslim name and it stuck, and of how and when he got married to my mom – how poor but favoured he was to marry a woman from... I won’t say that... hehe!). We talk a lot. He is not the kind of, ‘you are still a kid and have so much to learn’, but one of, ‘Yeah you are a kid, but you must learn how to grow up until you are my age’. He is over sixty you know... 

I love my dad. Yeah I do. People say we look alike... OK, that’s a story for another day... He is a courageous man. Even to today, when all of us are out here making life happen, he still is not the lazy fellow who waits to be fed – he takes care of his family still...

Concluding my chit chat, there is a movie I admire (one addressed by DJ Johni Celeb in his post ‘Man – An Endangered Species’) – Courageous. It is a movie I would like every man to watch. It is a good movie. I wonder if we, the men of today, shall rise up and become courageous for our God, our girlfriends, our fiancées, for our wives, for our children. I wonder if we will love them as Christ loves the Church. I wonder if men of this generation will be courageous at all. I wonder if this Fathers’ Day will remind us more of the great Father we have – our God. Such a Father who gave His only Son for us thus showing us the deepest love ever known. I only wonder. But I also hope that men will take their positions and rule, and guide, and show the way that this generation should go... I hope that God will be the very picture of a father we wanna be... Only Him is the best picture...

Morris.