Real men do cry just like women

When I was young I used to think that fathers are boys who didn’t like gifts wrapped in boxes with ribbons.  I thought wrapped boxes were for kids and women.  My father used to tell us that gifts are for girls, just as crying is for girls and little children.  When my brothers cried, my father chided them and told them that men don’t cry.  But when I grew up, I finally saw the real man in my father and realized that real men cry.  Men cry just as women cry.  The only difference is that women cry more often than men.

The first time I saw my father cried was when one of my sister got sick seriously.  The second time was when my mother died.  He looked so helpless that time that I didn’t know how I could describe him.  I thought men are strong and could face all trials in life.  I was only fifteen that time so I still am very confused and innocent and couldn’t match any adjective to describe how my father behaved.  I just watched my father and thought of how topsy-turvy things are.  As I watched my father crying beside my mother’s coffin I felt so numb and drained.  Just when we needed our mother, she just gave up living and left us.  My father didn’t make things better for me, instead he aggravated the situation and left me wishing I wasn’t there watching my family so desolate.

How easy it was to just say everything would go just fine but looking at my father who looked like a lost child, gave me the creeps and hopelessness. 

Things changed tremendously in my family, since the sudden death of my mother, from the family that used to be full of life to a family that was so forlorn.  Nobody wanted to talk about what happened but I could feel that every member of the family was so affected by mother’s sudden demise.  She was after all very young when she died at the age of only 47 and what made things worse was that most of us were still too young to be left on our own.

My father was left to rear us and I saw the real man in him.  He did everything for all of us especially to our youngest brother who was only three when my mother died.  He worked from dawn ‘til night making sure that we continued our studies while he worked so hard leaving almost nothing for himself.  All the time, he worked and reared all of us and he forgot a lot of things for himself.  I often caught my father crying alone but he never shared his burden with us.  Instead, he shouldered everything and made us all thought that he was fine.  It was all so sad because I wasn’t able to do anything to ease his burden.   My father was a man of few words and more work so it was perhaps the reason why he never talked about his problems. 

My father taught us the real meaning of life at the same time I saw in him how it is to be a real man in the absence of a woman.   My father never attempted to find another woman to help him even if there were women who obviously showed interest in him.  He lived only for us his children.  I could never forget how he often told us that he didn’t want to marry because we are his treasures that nobody could take place.

During those times Father’s Day was not a recognized celebration in my country so there were no wrapped gifts from us for father.  I never thought that my father would leave us so soon jus when most us have already jobs and we would have given him a better life.  He was 69 when he died.  And it was also the time when several people in my country were already celebrating Father’s Day.  But it was too late for us to celebrate it with father. 

Father’s Day would always come and go and for me, who has no father, I will not be wrapping gifts but I will be reminiscing and cherishing the time when father was with us nurturing us and rearing us the best way he could.