Our Parents CRY

Sometime last month, I had a heart to heart conversation with my dad. He shared with me his challenges as a father to his kids and a husband to his wife. "Just because I don't scream out loud" he said,” doesn't mean I don’t feel the pain that comes from being a father." 

He continued….

"Sometimes I wish I can run away, but to where do I run to? I wish I have the strength to punch life back but I do not? And just because the load is off me doesn't mean the pain is gone. As parents, we live with scars we hide from our children because of the effect it may have on their lives.  I am a survivor today not because I am well educated, well connected or financially buoyant. No! I am a survivor because God has been merciful to me and he has planted in me a dream to pursue. What makes you a man my son, is your ability to confront challenges and make decisions even when all hell is breaking loose."

"As a father, part of what keeps me going is the emotional support I get from my family. Nothing can take the place of a family."

I sat there, listening with rapt attention, at the feet of a man I have come to love, respect and adore. And as he poured out his heart, I wept in my soul for those who never experienced parental love, some who had it and threw it away and some who had it snatched from them by circumstances of life. My heart went out to people who were born just as I was but from broken homes, those who spent their childhood fantasizing about a vacation trip with both parents and never had the opportunity to turn their fantasy to reality. Regardless of what home we come from, our parents are to be appreciated and celebrated for all they’ve been through for us.

If reading the above words causes a new found respect and appreciation for our parents and the struggles they face, I will be proud. If it causes one son to call his dad and say "Thanks for staying the course and fighting through the many pains of life It will be a success. If it causes one daughter to call her mother and say “You are all I want to be when I grow up” then this piece might have fulfilled its purpose. if it causes both son’s and daughter’s to recognize that they are not the only ones who needs emotional support, gets frustrated, faces struggles for which there seems to be little cure and stands relentlessly and gallantly in spite of personal loss and pain, then this time will be well spent..

And most of all, the greatest lessons of life have been learnt by experience, but thank God for the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. If you are out there and you are a product of broken, battered, shattered homes, perhaps you hate your dad for hitting your mum or you despise your mum for neglecting her kids, why not cast your mind back to the fact that they did what they did because it was what they thought was right at the time. You see it differently now because somehow you happen to know better. 

Take a stand today, to make heroes out of your parents by determining to live a better life than they did. Ride on the wings of the mistakes they made, the lessons they were forced to learn the hard way. Take a stand for the change you want to see, so that one day your son would call you his hero and your daughter would one day say you are her pride!

Gracias