I used to think about the man I called ‘Daddy” and feel a deep void in my heart – a sense of loss, of missingness that comes from losing a parent at the age of ten. I used to see his smile – the same one mirrored in the framed portrait sitting beside our god lamp – frozen in a body that would no longer age nor feel the wide spectrum of ugly and beautiful emotions that make us human. And I used to believe that I would never be able to detach the all-pervasive loss that clung to the word, ‘father.’
The thing about grief, though, is that it fades away over time, becoming a pang when you see, touch, or smell something that reminds you of your loved one, then a pinch, then a prick, then a feather-like brush. I realized that one day when I learned I could speak about my dad without choking up with emotion.
‘But your father didn’t choose to leave you, mine did.’ A stated it as if it were a universally known fact, his calm face illuminated by the sun.
‘You’re right,’ I said, thinking how morose it was that we were comparing which was better: death or abandonment. ‘I guess I have that – knowing that if my dad had a choice, he would choose to stay.’
‘And you’re damn lucky your father wasn’t like mine.’
I thought about our ‘father’ conversation for months on end – the differences in our life situations, our shared ‘fatherlessness,’ and how I wanted to change the narrative.
Unlike A’s, the memories of my father aren’t tainted, except maybe by the passage of time, which serves to give those memories a vintage-like pricelessness. Still, I didn’t want to reduce my father to a collection of favourite moments: him taking me to the shops, letting me choose my favourite sweets; him holding his hands over mine as he teaches me to hit a golf ball; him coercing my thick hair into a neat pony, an elastic band wedged between his lips. Because if I did, my father would be finite. But, if I burrowed deeper, into the magic of the universe, perhaps I could find an infinite existence for my father.
It’s been a few years, and I think I found it by widening my definition of father. A father (to me) is unquestionable, unconditional love in a plethora of forms. A love that supports you through the toughest challenges in your life. A love that challenges you to be and do better.
Just because my father has died, it does not mean that the very essence of ‘fatherliness’ has ceased to exist in my life.
I know now that my ‘father’ has always been there. In my uncles, aunties, and cousins that stepped up, sharing between them all the things a father is known to do. In my granny that helped co-parent my brother and me. And of course, in my brave mother who fell apart, put back the pieces of herself in the best way she could, and ensured that we never wanted for anything.
When I think of my father now, I picture him standing beside the most important people in my life, hand in hand, saying, ‘See, we did it. Together.’
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This was one of the highly commended entries in the My Father essay writing competition. Click here to read other excellent essays from the competition.