It is June again,and from here, it is HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Someone reading the line above wonder if I have smoked a reefer or two . Let me explain, I am sending a new year greeting because this my first writing piece in 2019.
Truth be told, I have opened this blog countless times to read stuff I wrote from way back and see if I can still match the quality. That is gist for another day. I have also tried to restart my writing on different days but…(that’s also a separate story)
Today however, I am breaking the jinx, and resumed again, and I will keep writing…SO HELP ME GOD!!!
There have been special days this year: days recognized worldwide, family memories, birthday anniversaries and the like. On each of these days, I have wanted to write but…(no, we won’t leave it this time)…other things got the better of my time, commitment, attention and devotion till that special day passed.
Today however, being Fathers’ Day, I choose to celebrate the uniqueness of the ‘Chief Servants’ of the home. There has been no time when the sacrifice of a father has been lost on me. I am lucky to have a father with whom I can relate properly and who has at no time hidden the different sides that being a father shows forth in a man. I am also lucky to have lived beyond being told what fatherhood is, and experiencing it myself.
The fact that I have been opportune to sire another has further exposed me to the sacrifice a father makes at different times. No matter how simple or unchallenging it seems to some people, it is what it is.
A little journey down memory lane and I can say with all sense of appreciation that fathers are just wonderful. Although, I carry the same distinguishing organ like many men, the things real men do for the sake of their offsprings, cannot be quantified. Permit my repeated use of the word ‘luck’. I am lucky to have a man who sired me but who is actually a friend. I saw the way he put his comfort aside to make my siblings and I have the best that can be had.
My dad will always tell us he preferred to be ill than for any of us to suffer any health-related discomfort. As a young chap of seven or eight years, I always wondered if he was sane but as life moved me into the stage of fatherhood, I understood his position.
One of my father figures may be reading this. This man would give all he had to his kids and go get a way to hitch free bus rides from Sango to Secretariat when I was in primary school. As young as I was back then, it meant a lot to me.
As we grew and became more conscious, we became more aware of the things our fathers did just to make sure we did not suffer for anything. I know how a friend’s dad would take blue collar jobs to augment the earnings of his white collar job. It really cannot all be quantified.
Some of us had fathers who we saw as cruel when we were kids but as we grew, we understood how much they loved us despite never saying it to our faces.
Life has bestowed the title of father on me. Daily as I wake and see my toddler bounce out of the room in search of ‘Daddy’, I feel something I cannot explain. Of course, as I looked at him sleeping peacefully on the day he was born, I felt indescribable emotions. I was moved to tears and everything in my life has revolved round him. I have had to deny myself some comforts to put a smile on the face of the little one because…FATHERHOOD!
I don’t know how we do it, I don’t know how we will keep doing it but I celebrate everyone who is a father today. I am graced to have fathers along with my FATHER and I celebrate you all today.
May as many of us be chanced to reap our labour of love.
HAPPY FATHERS’ DAY
P.S: is there a memory of your dad that has stuck with you? Please share in the comments.
OSCARPOEMS 
I know I’m not regular and maybe that’s one of the many reasons I believe fathers are under-celebrated. I celebrate all fathers in my life and great fathers out there again today as ever.
Thanks for stopping by. Indeed, it baffles me how much fathers are underestimated. Many forget how much of a sacrifice these men make. Many struggle so much that they forget to smile, many cannot afford physical presence because they have to be physically present elsewhere.
Indeed, fathers are great!
Good God, my brother from another mother. Words cannot describe nor capture what fatherhood meant. You are really lucky as my biological Dad went to be with the Lord Jan 2017. We were not very close but I cried like a baby as the emotions and memories flashed through my mind and the essence of father dawn on me being a father myself. Sometimes I wish he is still alive as those fights too all is forever gone.
Fathers are a gem…
God rest his soul and help us to be better versions of the men we idolize.
Thanks my egbon. You already are a model father
You write so well. I stumbled on your page today and I love everything you’ve written’ especially the one you wrote for your ex- girlfriend. Keep up the good work
Big thanks for the good words. I’m even more appreciative because the rate at which I write has gone down over the years, I guess that’s due to the demands of ‘adulting’. Thanks once again.