DAD

I walk to work like any other Kenyan, like any normal person would. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying people who drive are not normal but if I did they would not know. I am sure no one who owns a car reads my blog; they probably read bikozulu or magunga. Anyway if you own a car and read my blog then that might actually make you abnormal but you could comment and I will apologize for calling you that.

There is a young man in front of me probably in his mid-20’s, he is carrying a little girl maybe 4 or 5. The little girl has twin braids on, she is beautiful. A beautiful little girl almost as beautiful as Amaris. She is comfortably on the guy’s shoulders as if she trust the guy with her life and maybe she does. The guy might or might not be the girl’s dad but for purposes of this article he might actually be the dad. These two the guy and the girl are a funny duo, the trust and the ease in which the live life in that moment is something worth admiring. He takes steady steps and the girl in her beautiful school uniform and her twin pigtails sway side by side. Her pigtails especially, they seem to enjoy the elevated position. This could pass for a scene in an ad.

I do not have enough in my archives for when I was young but I recall a fierce love-hate relationship with my dad. Before you all start taking the first sentence out of context, let it be known that I was a child. A young boy with a dad who loved him so much and lived by spare the rod and spoil the child philosophy. You see my dad was the kind of dad who breaks a very nice moment to beat the hell out of you for talking with food in your mouth. He is an old man now, not so old but old and I, well I am a young man now. I understand that dad did all that to make me a better human being, to make me a sane person in a crazy world. I was raised with an iron fist and that made me the man I am today. Among other things that the old man gave me and he still gives me shit to date was the name MUNENE, boy I’m I proud of the name or what? The man tried, he did and I give him that, he still does but he is not the man I knew when growing up.

While I continue observing and learning how to be dad, picking up bits from here and some from there. I still haven’t hacked the being a dad code. I cannot entirely pick up everything I saw from my dad, he had his shortcoming. He is the best dad in the world but even the best dads have failed in some aspects of fatherhood. It is for that reason that I only pick up things I feel would make me a better dad and husband.  From this guy I pick trust and friendship and being available. It is a bitter sweet lesson since I am at a place in life where I am caught in between being available and carrying my daughter atop my shoulders or going out there and getting money. I want to be those dads in movies who get kissed on the cheeks by their daughter as they alight a Chevrolet Suburban to run mix with other kids in a brookhouse-like school. I don’t want to be the dad who carries their daughter on their shoulders to a local school. I also don’t want to be the dad who is never present to carry their daughter on their shoulders or are never present for their first days at school in the name of getting money to buy a Chevrolet Suburban.

I love the dedication that this young man in front of me has, I hope his daughter never forgets the moment he carried her on his shoulders to school. I hope she never forgets because behind them there was a guy in a white polo shirt that made a funny face when she looked at him and she waved cheekily and smiled. I hope when the guy cannot afford campus fees she will forgive him because he spent his twenties carrying her on his shoulders to school. Because he chose her over money. That is worth remembering.

I hope you can read the anger in the few sentences above. It is the conflict of this guy’s way and my way and because I am selfish I want it to be my way even when I know my way might end in a nasty dad-daughter relationship. I could be the hero or the villain.

I don’t have the closest relationship with my daughter. I am out here getting money that I don’t even have, I call when I can but that is never enough. She thinks Nyeri is this fantasy world where her dad lives and works; like Disney world. I hope she forgives me for wanting to be the dad she kisses when alighting a Chevrolet Suburban not the dad who carries her on his shoulder to take her to a local school. I hope she forgives me for wanting more for her than just being there with nothing to offer, I want to be the dad than can afford a holiday for her.

I hope she will be smart and if she won’t be I hope I will be the kind of dad who affords to take her to a private uni like Strathmore or USIU. I hope she will be the kind that is free, that can do anything. I hope she will be the kind that drives a small car to school with a human sized teddy bear on the backseat. I hope the  car will smell like love. I hope she won’t smoke weed and if she does I hope one day I’ll meet her smoking a blunt on the balcony of our home and we’ll share the blunt and I hope that will not make me a bad dad. I hope shed will be into arts and I know I will be her number one fan. I hope she will think of me as a friend she could tell anything and not as a dad who should be feared. I hope she will not depend on a man to survive because I will give her everything. I hope she will not get pregnant before doing everything she ever wanted to do and if she does I hope it will be for a man who will love her.

I hope she will be a woman who will not be bound by what the society thinks of her and I hope she will make presentations in boardrooms and command respect. I hope she will still be beautiful and she will still have that smile. I hope she calls me when she needs me and I promise her I will pick up her calls, I promise I will drop everything else and be there for her. I hope I will shout “THAT’S MY GIRL” when her name will be read on her graduation day. I hope she will be limitless, I hope she will create her own thing.

I will thank her for making me a dad and I promise her I will do everything to be the best. She will not always be my girl, I hope she finds a handsome young man that she will share her life with. I hope he will not treat any less than she deserves and I hope he will also be my friend. I hope that the last title my daughter will give me will be GRANDPA, I hope she will give birth to a little angel and that little angel will call me grandpa. I hope that the little angel will be told of stories and things we did with my little girl and I hope one day she will want to spend time with me and I hope she will NOT think I am old.

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If you love things cars please read AUTOCHAT by CushKelvins, guy has reviews of anything automobile (read otomobil) from the latest rides to hacks on how to buy used cars..