Thursday, June 22, 2006

Father Figure.

Wait the minute, I need to knock my head against the kitchen sink.

The idea of being a father is scary. I know I can be mom better than I can being a dad. It's quite easy to be a mom. I watched Aunt all my life to know for sure. Frankly I don't know what a father does, around the house, that is.

I know a dad watches a lot of TV, especially football. He also reads newspaper a lot too, sometimes all day. He does this on a couch, puffing a ciggy or a pipe if he is a smoker, that is. He's got the TV turned on full blast to CNN or something macho like a rugby channel. He has to have his drink on the side, in a huge mug of tea, or coffee, or both by the table next to the couch. Sometimes he grunts at the way the world has become with wars going on in every corner of the universe. He says something smart to a mom sitting ramrod like a manequin next to him, agreeing to everything he says about how to solve all this military conflicts. He's got all the answers to all the world problems if only those policymakers and politicians take the time to listen to him. Oh yes, he's got all the answers and you can bet your left ear on this.

He also says, 'Later,' 'Tomorrow' or 'I'll get to it after I'm done with this sports page.' Sometimes he goes, 'Woman, will you please stop bothering me? Can't you see I'm busy taking a break here?'

Sometimes he goes to a mom, kissing her on the shoulder blades and takes her to the bedroom to close the door behind him. Give them about half an hour max before you see a mom walks out the room looking as if she's fought a grizzly bear or something. She'll say something like, 'Don't make too much noise, your dad is sleeping.'

A dad also takes a look at your bicycle and makes it ride smooth good as new again. When I was little I used to take my bicycle to a dad who lived a few houses from ours. I'd watch him work on the bike with the tools he got in a box. I'd touch a plier, or an open-end spanner and his kid would go, 'Don't touch!' I'd put it back wishing I had a dad who had a box of tools like that so I can tear apart my bicycle and put it all back together again good as new. Aunt said I shouldn't go to that house too often. I said, 'Why, mommy?'

You don't have to worry about anything in the world if you had a dad in the house. He takes care of everything like kills a snake so it won't bite you. He's also the first to go get a cow before he and the rest of the men at the mosque bring it down to the ground to slaughter it for Qurban. You see him holding down a huge cow down on the ground, pressing the neck with his strong arms full of tough muscles that can knock your teeth out clean with a single punch. You see him smiling and happy joking with the men and you wish one of them is your daddy but none of them is. Each and everyone of them belongs to someone.

This is not a sad story. As a matter of fact all this is supposed to make you laugh because I watch TV dad a lot to learn a thing or two how to be a dad. I've got some ideas so it's not exactly something scary. Only sometimes. Especially when I think that her daughters used to have a daddy who was a Major in the air force.


Next entry: Lunch with the family, I mean her family.

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bergen,
Don't worry too much about being a father-just be yourself. Give them love and you will get their love back. A daddy doesn't have to be the strongest man on earth- he only needs to know his children, talk to them, laugh and play with them and the most of all is to love their mother.

2:47 PM  
Blogger podgykat said...

Just be yourself, you'll do alright. Enjoy this poem below, though it's a long one! by Yeats

A Dialogue Of Self And Soul
William Butler Yeats

My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
“Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady’s dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And interllect is wandering
To this and that and t’other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery—
Heart’s purple—and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier’s right
A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known—
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;

The finished man among his enemies?—
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what’s the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?

I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

2:50 PM  
Blogger Queen Of The House said...

Bergen, I need time to catch up on your entries lah. SO much must be going on in your life that you are writing like a bullet train!

I am sure you will do okay - any dad who also knows how to be a mom is A-Okay in my opinion :)

3:16 PM  
Blogger tee said...

sir berg, just be urself and lotsa of doa.. :)

3:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bergen,

(I just found out that there is a seaside town in the Netherlands of the same name).

Anyway, when u become a father, then u'll know ... its hard to explain... Its like when I first became a mum... Even if u had a father figure, u will NOT be just like him... just be ur own person and let ur kids be their own person.

Aida.

3:25 PM  
Blogger dee3 said...

*present*

3:46 PM  
Blogger Arena said...

Yeah, dont worry to much, you'll be alright insyallah. Dont stress yourslef about being the perfect father. Be the best that you can, give it all u got, follow your instinct, insyallah all will be wel..

4:17 PM  
Blogger LifeBloom said...

Yes - it did make me laugh!

A father is just human after all. And most important you just need to be there for your kids when it matters.

My dad is not macho, geli with blood, can't fix a bulb to save his life. But he has the biggest heart in the world.

5:16 PM  
Blogger AuntyN said...

You'll do fine. No doubt about it.

6:35 PM  
Blogger anedra said...

dont think about it too much. i believe that these things come naturally. you'd make a fine dad and a fine husband for that lucky lady too! :)

9:26 AM  
Blogger Nazrah Leopolis said...

u know what works for me?

-that sparkle in my dad's eyes when he's in his better moods

-when dad checks on us in the middle of the night, makes me feel safe.

-that surge of static that i feel when dad strokes my hair when i am sick

-that smile that lights up the whole room when he looks at mom

-that only time he told me he loved me via sms

so u see, not that hard to make children happy.

3:14 PM  
Blogger Mama Rock said...

berg, good luck. woory one thing at a time. I'm sure you'll win the kids' heart!

5:45 PM  
Blogger Lollies said...

ahh no one knows for sure until they become one. Even with someone who does has a dad.

6:14 AM  
Blogger RamblingRose said...

You should be afraid.As you not only shape your children's outlook in life but you also hold the responsibility in leading and guiding your WIFE.
The problem with young couples is that the men usually take their roles for granted. Once you are married everything you do, you have to think it is for the both of you. Every step, every slight of hand every tiny gestures it involves and reflects on BOTH of you. And when you have kids, the scope gets bigger.Before you worry about being a dad, you should worry on being a husband first.

8:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

someone told me being a parent is an ongoing learning, mistake making, deal-as-you-can kind of process. which makes you no different from other parents!

9:58 AM  
Blogger ROYAL JESTER said...

bergen,
its not easy trying to be a father to these children. I know coz I have a step father too. Just so long that you know that you can't replace their father, then, your expectations of them won't be too much and they won't expect too much out of you too.
Just be yourself and let them know that you are not trying to replace their father but that you love their mom very much and would like to take care of her. And if ever they need you, you'll be there for them too. That should work!Good luck, if you have a good nawaitu, Allah will help you make this easy, insyaAllah.Take care.

12:48 PM  
Blogger Nour said...

Good luck and don't worry, just be yrself and you will do fine :)

4:53 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home