The things you taught me

My father used to wear spectacles. He often sat on a wooden rocking chair at the front of the house and read the newspapers, top to bottom, front to back. If you spoke to him at any point as he read, he lowered his chin and looked at you over the spectacles. He never would say anything. That one hour was his and his alone. Whatever it was, it could wait. It had to wait.

It is a thing i learned to love and respect about him. That when he set his mind to make time for himself, whatever time of day it was, he respected that time and you had no choice but to do the same. He taught me that every moment in your life was a choice. That what you gave yourself was what the world gave you. That creatures had habits and those habits are what fed them. He taught me to measure my worth.

My father was a kind man. He never once said a harsh word to us. He however never spared us a beating if we deserved it. It often came with a sad look on his face. That look for me, was these words unspoken. "I love you. I love you so much that i want you to learn that what you did right there is beneath you. So i am going to beat the thought of ever doing it or anything similar again, out of you." I always took my beatings in stride. The canes were a hard plain bamboo stick. He had five of them under his bed wrapped in a plain cloth. One for each of us.

My mother never interfered in these moments. She often walked away right before the discipline session and came back right after with a cup of tea for him. It was as though beating us drained him. She always sat with us later asking about anything and everything but never mentioning the cane. She knew that he would never beat us for no reason.

My father never once tasted any alcohol. Not even the local brew. He did not like sodas and anything else that was artificial. There was no sugar in our house growing up because he didn't like sugar. We always had plenty of honey and at a point, even a bee hive.

Our home was like a shelter. People always came and stayed for days, months and some even years. At one point, i remember there were twenty of us. He just never turned away people. My mother taught us to quickly make up sleeping places in every available space each night and roll up the mats and mattresses before breakfast the next morning.

When i was 15, he brought a television to the house. It showed black and white pictures. He would crowd us all around him every evening to watch the news with him. My mother had to leave her cooking and come and watch with us too. He believed that if he was hearing something important, we all had to hear it. We had to keep our questions for the end of the news and then we could ask what it all meant. He was patient with us and explained as much as he understood.

I like to read. I know i got that from him. He would fold the paper after he read it and place it on the chair for whoever wanted it next. That was always me.

I watch him now as he drags the stick to bring the mouse trap closer. He is old and his back gives him a bit of trouble now. He speaks more now that he is older. When i asked him why, he said that at his age, he had more wisdom to share. He said he did not want to take the wealth of information he had to the grave.

He tells me to laugh more. He says he does not like the lines on my face. They tell a story that he does not want to read. He says there is so much sadness in the world that the face of a person should be a source of joy. He likes to say, "Joanne, when i see you, i want to smile, i want to feel my heart grow warm. But many times when i see you, i feel as though i should be crying with you and yet i do not know what it is that is breaking your heart."

He likes to hold my hand and speak a blessing over me as i leave. He says he has to be sure that the last thing he says to me every time i visit is a blessing because perhaps he might not make it to the next visit. When i tell him to not speak of death, he laughs at me and tells me it is a principle i should pick up, to speak well to others all the time. To wish them well and to pray with them.

I never really thought much of it until i grew up and started to compare. When i hear people talk of their fathers, i shake my head and excuse myself before i ask if that is really their father or a man who happened to share the same living space with them. I cannot understand how they can be so different from the father i had. How men with the same title and responsibilities can differ so greatly. I love my father even more now, I appreciate him even more.

He must know that he is one of a kind. When i tell him the stories of men my friends have for fathers, he smiles and says he had a good companion in my mother and that the children we were made it all the more easy for him. He is not a vain man this one.