THE MYSTERIOUS GUY (part 1)

I do not understand how someone you have never met can affect your life so much. Someone who is a complete stranger. I mean, it makes sense to say that you bumped into someone and you cannot stop thinking about them, but to say you cannot stop thinking of a stranger, someone you have never met, someone whose name you do not know, then that’s absurd. But it’s actually not. Especially when this person is the reason for your existence. You know that he is a real person because you are a real person but that’s as far as it goes. That’s a reality you have to deal with every day and being the only reality that you have known from your childhood then it’s not such a hard reality to believe. It becomes a part of you. It’s normal. Or is it?

It is 21^st June, another one of those mornings you wake up and every social media platform is full of pictures of a hero: everyone hailing their father for being a king, a provider, an awesome person…another one of those mornings you wake up and wonder what this stranger you can’t get off your head looks like. One of those mornings you want to pretend that you are okay with the fact that you have never seen your biological dad, that you have reconciled with the fact that you may never actually get to know him and that you do not really care whether he is alive or not because you have a hard-working mother and she has always done her best to assume the role of that stranger whose face is nothing but a blank image in your mind. 

 He must wear shirts and trousers because he is a man. Probably he occasionally puts on a tie but just like every other man, he discards it at the first opportunity he has. Maybe he has a dimple. That could explain why I have them too. Does he have a beard? Does he have other children? Maybe he does. Then you stop in the middle of your thoughts to scold yourself; how could you think of someone who doesn’t probably think of you? Why accord him such importance in your life when he is probably oblivious of your existence? Yet even in the midst of this self-scolding you can’t help but wonder what your life would be like if he was present in your life? Would you be a daddy’s girl? What kind of daddy would he be? The political father with whom you discuss all political happenings in the world or the academic dad who would always be on your neck to make sure you get another degree immediately after your previous one? What if he is a drunkard? Would you still want to know him as much as you do now? The more you think about him the more you wallow in a pit of anger, frustration and bitterness and slowly sadness engulfs you. The more images of happy daughters and their daddies, the deeper you go into this pit.

Things have not always been this way. Growing up, in my neighbourhood, it was normal to see households with absent father figures. In fact, of my closest childhood friends from my hood, only one has a father who has actually actively been a present father. He is a man to be hailed because after his wife passed away, he assumed responsibility of the family. With the help of his sister-in-law, he raised his children. They are all adults now. Well, at least most of them. (The last born is still a child, I assume in upper primary).