It has been more than 30 years but i still find myself thinking about it...about him, everyday. It has become a vicious cycle: Swear to myself (falsely) that it's about time to leave the past where it belongs; experience flashbacks; begin to search for as much information as i can about him.Then, back to square one.
I have to get rid of this awful recollection about my father.Seriously. While i no longer harbor any feelings of hatred for him or his actions (Thanks to a lot of bible study and prayer), i must find a way of living my life without blaming my actions or my circumstances on someone else. It is time to raise that anchor and set sail!
I feel like an airline pilot flying through the clouds with a dysfunctional OBS; it's virtually impossible to find your way.Perhaps it would have been more tolerable if the hole in my heart was caused by an estranged lover.Perhaps.
In President Obama's 2009 father's day message, he recollected how growing up without a father left a hole in his heart. He went ahead to implore fathers everywhere - and the kids when they're older - to be involved in the lives of their own children. He spoke at length about how his father, Barack Obama Sr. , left home early. The future president was only 2 at the time and saw his dad only once more, at age 10, a short visit that still left a lasting imprint. "I had a heroic mom and wonderful grandparents who helped raise me and my sister, and it's because of them that i'm able to stand here today," he told a throng of youngsters and leaders of community organizations."But despite their extraordinary love and attention, that doesn't mean i didn't feel my father's absence. That's something that leaves a hole in a child's heart that no government can fill."
In candid terms, Obama said he promised himself he would not repeat his own father's mistakes. "Just because your father wasn't there for you, that's not an excuse for you to be absent also. Its all the more reason for you to be present," he told the young men in his audience."You have an obligation to break the cycle, and to learn from those mistakes, and to rise up where your own fathers fell short and to do better than what they did with your own children," Obama said. "That's what I've tried to do in my life."
I agree that indeed, it will be a challenge to rise up where my dad fell short.I wasn't top of my class in high school; I didn't graduate from an Ivy League college; I don't have a plum job and, i am yet to own a car. Maybe that isn't what it takes to be a great father.If it was, my dad would have been the greatest father in this world. In the end, maybe its not about being perfect; it's not about always succeeding; it's about always trying. And that's something everybody can do. It's about showing up and sticking with it.
Today, i collected admission forms for standard 1 class in 2012 just to encourage a positive thought about having a wife and raising a family. I won't be enrolling a son next year but, God willing, my future son will be joining standard one with a father who's job will have begun at conception rather than ended immediately after it.
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