Mentalechoes

It was Fathers Day back home yesterday. One of my best mates told me in an email this morning, but I already knew about it. Thanks to Yahoo Calendar I don’t forget important dates now (unless I miss the reminder or I put them under the wrong date in the first place). I didn’t call or send or card to mine. I haven’t even spoken to him in 5 months. I don’t think he’s even noticed. For me, Father is more synonomous with sperm donor rather than caring authority figure who was always there for me. My father and I are practically strangers, and the handful of times we do talk in a year is forced ‘how’s the weather’ conversations. We never speak about anything meaningful or personal. That’s not my dads way. Once when he was angry and he was in an abusive mood he told me I could fuck off and die for all he cared! Well, to be fair he had been diagnosed with cancer and was angry about it and I suppose wanted to blow off some steam and I just happened to be the one on the phone. It’s funny to me though how we are so different, because I have never in my life said anything like that to anybody. Not even the one person I have really hated, and that was my mums second husband. My father has never been someone who has ever tried to be close to me. Not even through a long lot of years after he broke up from my mum and nobody else had a good word to say about him. I stuck by him when nobody else would, and still he has never made me feel like he really cared for me. I often wonder why! And a lot of times in my past I used to feel bad about not being the kind of son he maybe wanted! To this day I still feel like he wanted me to be different; and if I had of been different, maybe he would have wanted to be my father.

I know a lot of people have fathers like this. Mine is not the worst of the worst, but I guess I see friends who have good fathers and I wonder what it is that those fathers see in their sons that my dad doesn’t see in me. I try to look to the future to a time when I could be honest with my dad and try to reconcile our differences, but I know given his personality, it won’t happen. He doesn’t bend or compromise for any man, and certainly not me. I hope to be a father one day, and I hope that I am a better father to my kids than mine has been with me. Having the experience of growing up with the father I did, all I have to do is the complete opposite to him, and I’ll be doing alright!

Padwanna!