The privilege of calling you Father

Thinking about tens and thousands of children in the world that have not experienced or rather, that have not felt the presence if this figure, wakes me up every night with bleeding thoughts of what is wrong about some men in this world.

In a world today of vast imaginings, today, who better than your own father is suited to be your role model.  I stand today as one of the other handful that was graced with the privilege of having a father, Gregory Jobi Dunn.  God, being the infinite He is, decided to relieve my father from his completed task on earth 10 years ago.  I was only 12.  All I have in my mind is a word of thanks for what brief input he had for an everlasting impact he had in my life.  This memory serves as a replication of what great man he was when I see his reflection every time I look into my own heart.  But mercy takes a different path for all in mankind.  Parents get separated in divorces for reasons that are too great for us to sometimes understand.  Some, consumed by lust, feel that they should only donate their seed and disappear like the morning due at in mornings light not even wanting the responsibility of the life they helped bring into the world. And for some people, death resides unexpectedly.  We find people in the world that are not so fortunate and are infertile yet still have the power to adopt kids, so in turn another child is saved, but there are still more that need to be sheltered under a fortress of a FATHER.

I really do not know if I would be speaking any different if my father was around but what I do know now is how I feel about this subject.  I think that some men do not realize that the presence of father has the power to breed or motivate a character in a child, or another adult for that matter, more than what a self-help book, a motivation book and speaker, a single mother and friends could give.  Being firm and assertive made easier by seeing it in the household, setting goals, prioritizing, protecting your own, taking responsibility, the list could go on, but these are a few traits that I know one can pick up from a father figure.  With no school needed, a child can learn these traits from a father.  

I believe, outside of the destiny that we’ve all been given, there are a lot of children right now that are in the wrong places, in the wrong dealings with people of an explicit nature, children that have lost their ambition in life, children that have been deprived of another virtue greater than wealth, having a stronghold that they can call father.  We all need to account for the things that we are responsible for but as men we have a greater responsibility in life. In or out of wedlock, that child is yours.

I know because of what I received from my own father that expression goes beyond impression.

 “I would find him staring at me from a distance and wouldn’t notice that I could see his reflection on the window, see his shadow and feel his presence in and all around me.  I would be hurt physically or emotionally, with my little broken heart I would find his comforting voice saying “tigers don’t cry.”  His comparison of me to a distinctive creature means he knows my being, humble yet powerful.  Gregory you make me happy, you give me everything, you keep on encouraging me, and I hold you close to my heart.  Thank God you did not pass by but pass on, knowledge.  You are my father, my confidante.  Thank you Daddy”

They believed in us...

They Believed in Us

A year ago if you had come to me and said that “Charles, you will be a world renowned writer and your words will touch many and you will be one of the best authors known in South Africa" I wouldn't have believed you.  There is something that 'hits' you before you start seeing things in a different light. My light came to me on one Thursday night while I was sitting with my sister at her place.

 I remember earlier that week I had asked her if I could sleep over because it had been a while since the last time I did.  In accord, she picked me up on Thursday, late afternoon.  The trip there wasn't like any other that we have had before.  There, in the car, sat an unimagined silence that I did not understand and by the expression on her face as she looked yonder the windscreen, on the path that led to her domain, she was as baffled as I was of the presence of this silence.  The avid conversation with this silence grew and grew and occasionally was interrupted by the question of hunger and the answer of yes.  We draw closer and closer to the boom gate that signals entry into her court and brave salutations to this silence as with it we will depart when we disembark from the car.  The engine dying from an opposite turn of the key in the ignition commemorates the sonorous sound of the silence that has accompanied us to our destination and now, now I know, we are here.

While our speech was kept at bay, in our minds, well in my mind, the brewing of thoughts never seized...  "Will she be giving me a lecture about something?  Will she tell me, well further affirm that I need a job?  Will she in her, in total ignorance of my answer earlier, ask me again if I'm hungry?  Wait, she has to call my mother and tell her that we have arrived safely, in the notification will she tell my mother that she need not worry she's got me, the situation, under  control?  Hmmmmm, must I eavesdrop on the conversation so that I can gear up for whatever she'll say to me?  No, that would just be too senseless of me to do.  But I'm still wondering why she opted for this day instead of the day that I had requested.  Will she...?  Will SHE...?  I wonder would if she...?  Come now, I need to snap out of "IF"" She opens the door to her humble abode and at the entry of our souls, gratitude of our arrival is embraced and we head into the night.

Getting up for work on Friday was a bit of a charm for her because the headache she's had for the past three days has disappeared.  She leaves her home with me in it, with the  love of her mind that a part of her is left behind. Not more than three hours pass and she calls to say that she is on hear way back because the burden of a bruised mind shell, her headache, has returned.  She rests as I depart to have my day in the world of naught. I decided to stay until stay until Saturday at her place and she was ok with it. 

The silence proves to be a shadow, constantly monitoring our actions and our whereabouts.  When we sleep, it shares with our spirits what life we lead in the day. And in sleep, a new mystery is discovered.

In all these days that I spent with her, there has been one thing that has not eluded me.  She loves me in a way that I may never understand.  She does things for me without asking anything in return.  She prays for me even on days when she knows it is my own doing that I am in a bad space.  She is just unceasing.  Her worth has been epitomized by her actions that are beyond any ovation and she just keeps on getting better.  I say all of this with more conviction than that I can have for my own name.  I know today, more than yesterday, that she is one of the few that have believed in me.  She does this now.  She believes in me.  I may not know if it is a biological obligation, though I reckon it is not, for her to believe so much.  God has a vessel of His hand in my sister and has cells of his mind in my mother because these people believe in me.  These people believe that they see something in me that my worth has not paid respects to.  They have, indeed taken believing to a whole new level in my life.

Everyone in the world has "that person" that ultimately believes in them.  There may be one, two or even three, even more people that believe in you, I am just blessed to have two of them so close to me.  These people believe in us not because in some twisted way, it is beneficiary for them or in so doing they get points for being good people while walking the earth.  I believe that they believe in us to remind us that God exists, that our inspiration and motivation lies not only in our minds or unique characters but in our souls that are in an undocumented way, are intertwined with every other soul on this planet.  In turn, what could be interpreted in what I am saying is that when they believe in you, it gives them the courage, the will, the innate ability, to believe in themselves.  It is not a due that has to be paid for my existence in their lives, but merely circle that we are all part of in life that is divine.