DATING A FATHERLESS CHILD

My father is now a distant memory. As everyone who I haven’t seen in over two years usually becomes. I remember his scent, it smelled of his perfume, his sweat and his day. I could usually tell what he ate that day just from smelling him, it usually was something onion or garlic flavored, his breath was always minty and his lips always glossy. I remember that he rarely laughed and when he did laugh it was at something unusual or ironic. I remember that he listened to the kind of soulful love songs that made my eyes roll; Judy Butcher, Teddy Pendergrass, Kenny. I remember the big things like his paranoia, how he made us sing Namwanga songs every night and pray, I remember how I prayed with such faith that God wouldn’t take my daddy away. I remember how he used to visit me at break time when I was in primary and how he always brought natural yogurt. I remember the suit he wore when he felt handsome and the car he drove according to his mood. I remember his pride, his reasoning, his love, his temper, his hands that are identical to mine. I must admit that sometimes it hurts that I can’t quite remember what he looked like or sounded like until I see a picture or hear one of his brothers speak. I remember the day he died too just like I remember all the other things, I remember the look in his eyes and how he was simply a shadow of the man he was in the fullness of his life. My heart broke and my chest couldn’t contain the pain I felt, it worsened over the weeks and I would have sudden attacks of grief and now I laugh at it but then crying is all I knew how to do, crying is what got me through. I would be frying chicken and then start crying, I’d see a car like his and start crying, I would skip curfew and cry that nobody was there to shout at me. I’d sleep in my bed and cry about all the things that are so different because he isn’t here. But now I cry less, I reminisce and wonder but I feel like life can go on.

Dating a fatherless child is a task that only the bravest and wisest should take on. See a fatherless child hasn’t gotten their heart broken by the usual circumstances of unrequited love. Theirs is the heart break of loss, loss that makes one feel lost. A father is template of what a man should be and what he shouldn’t be. Without a father one simply doesn’t know who to reference when it comes to picking a man or becoming one. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; a fatherless child is an apple that fell out when the apple tree was cut down, it isn’t fully developed or ready to fall out. Without a father you spend your life trying to live up to who your father was, making up for his mistakes or trying your best to continue the legacy. When you date a person with no father be prepared to participate in many traditions that will not make sense to you, the person will make you do them just because their father did.

Be prepared to soothe worries about security, about the future and about you leaving them, if you are not sure you will stay, don’t bother pretending you will, somebody with no father has lost and has been left before so they are used to the concept, you don’t have to pretend with them, you either are there or you are not.

A person with no father experiences life in black and white, there is life and there is death. So be ready for some really wild times, taking risks and making epic memories, be ready to really feel alive, be ready for them to be passionate, be ready for them to entrance you with their wisdom be ready for them to surprise you with their ability to adapt, to really enjoy the moment and get lost in it. However don’t be surprised when they fail to trust, when they are cautious, when they sometimes just want to be alone or when they won’t do certain things with you, their apprehension cannot be taken away by a good time. They have learned to be their own hero, their own escape plan and their own answer one day at a time.

Be prepared for the phobia of parenting, be prepared for their obsession with being the best parent ever. Don’t be shocked when they have a fear or intolerance of cigarettes, guns, planes, heights, or unexplainable interest in suicide and cancer or if they go for costly check-ups every month. That may be their way of coping and ensuring they don’t go like their father did.

A person with no father is paranoid so remind them that you are there, remind them through your actions that they are not a bother to you. Remind them that they are safe, remind them that they are the same as everyone else and time and chance happen to us all. Remind them that there is a plan and a place in this world for everyone to be great. If they are religious remind them that God is ever present in every moment to fix, hustle, represent, guide, guard, comfort and be a father to the fatherless.

Some may become materialistic, some may become hustlers. Others may waste away and make a complete mess of their lives because when they lost their fathers they lost their direction. Some may become ambitious and over achieve. Others may develop the inability to finish what they start. Others may develop noncommittal behavior. Some may emerge healthy and do the best from themselves learning from the lives of those before them and perfecting what they have. Some may become exactly their fathers and eventually ending in a similar way. Losing a father is a blessing to some and a great loss to others, for at every funeral there are those who are heart broken and those who lurk in the corners struggling to hide their satisfaction. So losing a father may also start a path of vengeance.

I have learned that a life lost is simply gone. Sometimes I see my father in some of my mannerisms, sometimes I startle myself when I find myself doing things the exact way he did. I don’t spend all I have, I enjoy life but I don’t trust because it can let me down, I always push forward, I easily give up on things that don’t excite me, I fall in love with experiences, I get bored easily, I think all the time and I like to dream; all traits I have inherited from my father. I grow hair like his, I walk like him, I even smile like him. He is gone, to my kids he will be a story but to me he is not forgotten. I will always be my father’s child. Always.