When I become a Dad!

He says that growing up, he had a rather salty relationship with his dad. His dad was the typical African dad. Those fathers who expected everyone to be on their best behavior when they returned home When he spoke, you obeyed. You’d never say anything back. You were never allowed to hold an opinion, and in case you did, you kept it to yourself. Not like in our days, where we have the audacity to scream, “I hate you!” and run to your room and slam doors.

He paid fees, and you went to school. He said you’d study medicine, and you said “Yes, dad!” or rather, “Yes Sir!” only to discover, during one of your attachment periods, that you hate what you do and end up hating the people you do it with, and the only thing you want to do is stand in front of crowds with a guitar in your hands and a crowd shouting in your direction.

So, we are seated in this spot, under some shade, on a sunny afternoon, the kind of afternoon that makes you think, ‘What if the sun had moved an inch closer to earth and we were about to be burned?’ like the end was nigh.

I look at him. He doesn’t seem to smile much, and he appears sad, almost mournful. You should have listened to him; he spoke in unhurried sentences, making sure he expressed his words clearly, as they should. His arms were folded across his chest, as if what he was saying had given him chills.

He used to feel like he had lived his life in a half-assed manner, like a coward who could not stand up for himself, not because he did not want to but because he did not know how to. He then succumbed to a terrible disease, becoming a resentful and unhappy young man.

It’s been three years since his father died, and he realized that, despite their strained relationship, his father loved him deeply, he just didn’t know how to express it. You can’t blame him for growing up in a generation that believed in “spare the rod, spoil the child.” He recalls the number of times his father worked tirelessly in a government job that never paid enough to provide for him and his three siblings. He always asked about school, making sure they understood that bad grades were never allowed under his roof. Almost always, he made sure he looked at their homework books. He was strict and stern but loving, expressing his love in ways that seemed peculiar. But to him, the end justified the means. He wished he had understood this when his father was still alive; then he could have made peace with him and cleared up the resentment he had clung to for such a long time. He says they would have been friends if only he hadn’t tried so hard to push him away.

After sharing these, he bows his head like he is doing a prayer. There is a moment of silence that doesn’t really feel awkward. It is like he is giving me time to “digest” what he has just shared with me. Then he looks up, with a rather brighter face this time, and says,

“Osano, when I become a dad,…”

With these words, he kind of magically changes the mood of the whole conversation. He looks up to the sky, like he is making a prayer to the heavens, and then looks back in my direction and says,

“When I become a dad, every Sunday afternoon, I want to stand outside jumping castles and listen to my kids squeal with delight as they bounce up and down.” I want to listen to them because I will be a democratic father. I don’t want to impose my ideals on them. And because my father never kissed me goodnight, I want to kiss them goodnight, tuck them in their beds, and not feel like it is unmanly to do that. But more than anything, I want them to understand that even if I won’t be a fully present parent, I still have their best interests at heart, just like my father did.

To think of it, I would have loved to become a father too. Because, like Sam, I wasn’t actually getting a kiss on  the cheeks for a  goodnight! Don’t even sit there pretending that you were the child who was tucked in and kissed on the forehead every night before you slept, unless you grew up in Kileleshwa.

 Otherwise,stories like this make me want to camp here and write, to write about how different aspects of our lives affect us, to make us better people. 

With everything said today, I want to wake up tomorrow thinking, “When I become a father… “