By Ediale Kingsley
Dear Father,
Happy Father’s day.
Keep doing good. This job is not a title. It is a duty. The world will be nicer if fathers father. Fathering is an obligation. I wish all who had the powers to father could possess the skills, grace, wisdom and capacity to do the functions.
Life happens, yeah. Shit also does happens. But being a quality father should not be given to chance. Mothers are broken in pieces and the children are shredded in pieces, often, when fathers disappear.
Some time ago we read of that awesome story. A story of a black man accepting to be both father and mother to a son born prematurely. At birth the baby looked so lifeless that the mum ran away. We all read that inspiring piece and shared the story.
“When my wife gave birth, I was at work.
The doctor who was following my wife during her pregnancy called me to tell me to come to the hospital urgently. When I arrived, I saw the child, it was as if I had been hit with a log of wood on the neck, I had a headache” said this father.
What happened from that moment?
He sat down and the doctor told him that his wife had left, when she saw the child she did not support so she left despite her condition, she said that it is not her child and she left in tears, in a word she left the child in the hospital. The doctor asked this father what he wanted for the child, his answer did not take 1 second, in less than a second without hesitation he replied that he will take care of the child.
So was there funds to venture into all the care the baby required?
Not really.
“I had a small supermarket. I sold the whole supermarket to stay with the child to take care of him day and night. All my savings, and the check from the supermarket I invested in caring for the premature baby.
I gave him my heart, I gave him my patience, my love and my savings.
I took care of him myself without the help of anyone except the doctor.
Without hiring a nanny to keep him”.
Dude devoted 1 year of his life without working, without moving away from him, they both lived on his savings until the day he shared the testimony. Until his little premature became a beautiful little boy. Boy became cute and he grew up well, well fattened.
Well…naturally the woman. The wife came back. She begged. He forgave. And thanks to such fatherly capacity. Boy survived and have a mother too.
Life is a bitch.
Things happen.
When I read the book “Five People We Meet In Heaven”.
I wept.
The book thought a vital lesson of fathering, and offered some explanation to the fact that ‘in a whole, we may not know why some certain things happen. Nevertheless, they happen. But our reactions must be pure and independent of the ways we are treated’.
That’s the healthy way.
Be a father. Even if your wife is not a mother. Be a father even if you have baby mamas. Be a father even if your baby is by accident. Whatever the issue just be a good father.
This is our reasonable service. Otherwise what does this life matters. You are born. You grow. You die.
What we leave behind are a story. The sad ways we fathered through, or the great ways we fathered through.
I will be a great father. That is my pledge. My kids wouldnt wish for any other kind of father. So help me God.
My dad was great at it. But I was lucky. But regardless, it’s not a yardstick to faulter, if yours had slightly or heavily laxed attitude.
To all father keeping up. To all rising up. To fighting up. To all fathering through and through!
Cheers!!!
Your Father’s Day spotter,
Ediale
#ForTheCulture
PS: Go have yourself a bottle of cold drink on Father Buhari’s account. He is the national first father. After all we just recovered some of the Abacha’s loot. The last time it was used for #TradersMoni. Can we just use this one to drink cold Pepsi? #FathersMoni. Just saying.
PS 2: The picture here is that of Shina Peters and his then sweetheart, Clarion Chukwura… A good example of how to father a baby mama’s baby?