I hold fond memories of my late father. Ones that I have intentionally dug out of the dungeon I’d chosen to bury them in. The resentment I held against him would not let me acknowledge that at some point I worshipped the ground he walked on.

It’s no coincidence that I write this piece on Father’s Day, it’s only just a few years after his passing that I consciously decided to dedicate this day to just honouring the parts of him that gave me a glimpse into a father’s devotion to his first daughter. To say I was the apple of his eye would be an understatement; I have not encountered a man who loved me to that extent since. Papa was always the person I could rely on with my Afrikaans homework. I’d impatiently wait for him while he greeted any familiar person we’d bump into on the street. I didn’t understand how a person could be so friendly.

I remember dad carrying me on his shoulders, hopping stadia to watch Orlando Pirates play. My love for the team was fostered then, it also could only be fate that on the evening after his burial, the buccaneers won their first major silverware in a decade and that began the historic double treble. That moment I wished he were around to witness the exhilaration of it all. However, dad was a man with a habit: you could never separate him from the bottle. Hence I also remember that my father never attended a single school event of mine, even the fact that I without fail would be awarded for academic excellence each year could not convince him to show up.

There is a memory lives in my head. My mother went into premature labour and I had to go out at night to seek help while he could not be located. All this and more piled up to create this wall I built, so much that for the longest time I’d feel guilty that I was actually relieved when he died. I felt a burden had been lifted. Because of introspection, I have come to terms with that both the men above can mutually exist within a person.

Human beings are flawed, in one way or the other. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes it well in “The Danger of a Single Story”. If many were to only know my dad based on just one of the paragraphs above, they’d never know that my younger sister and I can speak about him so differently. To her, he was the best man to have ever walked on earth. I have learnt through their relationship that parents are capable of recognising how they’ve erred and doing their best to rectify it through the next ones. It doesn’t erase that I had to bare the brunt of his learning phase, but it warms my heart that in him I got to learn an important lesson in unlearning behaviours.

Many speak highly of the man I called Papa. In the same breath, one not without faults. I choose to describe him as what I’ve termed a “presently absent” dad. I am grateful for the all the phases of him. Irreplaceable he will remain in my life; not just my first love but also first heartbreak.

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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.