I was in SS1 then and my immediate younger brother was in JSS2. As young chaps that we were, we had certain attitudes characteristic of people within our age bracket. Though, we spent more hours of each day with my mum which made her experience more of our untoward adolescent nature than my dad did, her attempts to tame us were hardly successful because we got used to the endless tongue-lashings. But my dad who used to spend fewer hours with us, had a presence that was potent enough to curtail and contain our excesses. Though, he was aware we were young people, he didnt expect us to misbehave for whatever reason. Who do anyhow go see anyhow. But we wanted no restrictions. My brother and I kept devising ways to counter him. But none worked. Finally, we resolved to hold a parley with him. That day, he returned pretty late from a trip. But we kept vigil by reading. We knew that was the most successful way to get favours from him. At about midnight he came back. Even before welcoming him, he started praising us to high heavens for staying up till that time, reading. The suya he bought for the whole family, he gave to two of us to flex. And we flexed it well. At that point, we knew the time was right to summon him. Just as he was about to retire to sleep, I summoned the courage to tell him we needed to talk with him. He paused for a while. At that point, liver fail me. The sound of my heartbeats could be heard. Same with my brother. Eventually, he sat down and asked to know what we wanted to tell him. Quickly, I started talking like a programmed machine. I told him we didnt like the fact that he would punish us whenever mummy reported us to him without giving us the room to defend ourselves. I complained that he travelled too often; that he used to prevent us from going to the river with our mates to swim; that we were too big to do certain chores, and so on. Fear made me to forget most of the charges I had against him. At that point, my brother quickly took it up from where I ended, mostly repeating all I said. At a point he started talking undecipherably, like a babalwo doing incantations, all due to fear. For having the guts to sit popsi down and clear our minds, we thought we had taken our excesses too far and were expecting to be taught some lessons the hard way. Surprisingly, what we heard after some silence was, I thought I was living with boys; I didnt know you guys had become men. He shook us and bade us goodnight. My big head got bigger when I heard those words. We felt like kings and congratulated ourselves. That changed a lot of things. He started seeking our opinions, not just my mums, before doing certain things. Na so we take enter the family cabal. We could engage him in arguments, stop or delay him from going out because we wanted him to dance with us. Many times, he would instruct my mum to serve us meals in the same plates as against the individual pattern we were used to. We started getting more of and from him. We started relating more like friends than the top-bottom pattern it used to be most times. And like wine, the relationship has continued to get sweeter with time. My daddy, fan, friend, confidant, teacher, benefactor and mentor is a year older today. It was a busy day for me, but I had to cut short my engagements just to be with and have some good time with him this evening. It is my prayer that GOD will bless him with many more years laden with good health, happiness, love, warmth, and all that life has in its bounty. Happy birthday dad.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 19:14:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015