I could only imagine what it would be like to have a father, someone to call papa [sigh]. Not that mine is dead, no, he is very much alive and healthy, or so I hope.

Papa… [genuinely smiling], someone who would ask me what my day was like after school, one who would fetch me after school when I had public speaking, someone who would check on my school progress, pay my school fees, make sure I have school uniform and that there is enough food at home.

Papa… someone who would hug me and be my male best friend that I look up too, one who would give me forehead kisses and reassure me that I am doing great and that I should be proud of myself; give me words of wisdom as a father does to his daughter.

Papa… someone who tells you about boys and how bad they are [laughing] forgetting his gender [hides face]. Someone who prays for you and blesses you, one who protects you from abusive relationships because you know he is there to listen to you and welcome you back home with open arms whenever life is not kind to you.

Papa… someone who drives me to university and on the way, tells me how much he will miss me, miss the things we used to do together like playing monopoly, solving puzzles, preparing my mother’s favourite dish on her birthday and one who cracked the best jokes [smiling]. Someone who would tell me not to lose focus and to make him proud, and as he unpacks the last of my furniture in my room. He would hug me tight and as he wiped the tears flowing from my face, he would tell me that he was one call away and that I would always be his little angel. Four years later or seven years later when I obtained my Doctorate, he would shout the loudest from the crowd as I walked on the stage with my gown and he would say: “that’s my baby” [tearful].

Papa… someone who meets my boyfriend when I am 29 and he gives him a hard time because no one is good enough for his little girl who really is not so little anymore [sighing thoughtfully]. One who has set the standard so high that it would be hard for any man to meet, because he would have fulfilled his role of being a loving papa. A caring papa, a present papa, a guiding papa, an observant papa, a papa who read me bed time stories and protected me from the “monster under my bed”, a papa who taught me respect and supported me, a papa who pushed me when I no longer felt like going and a papa that told me the difference a good man and a bad one. Not out of control, but out of experience. I could only imagine what it would be like to call someone papa, to envision the role he would have played in my life, to have a man to look up to so that I didn’t go searching for these characteristics in every man I meet hoping they fulfil what the little girl in me has always yearned for, but…

Papa was not there emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. I was never the apple of papa’s eye. All I could do, all I could ever do, was imagine what it would be like…

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This was one of the commended entries in the My Father essay writing competition. Click here to read other excellent essays from the competition.