A father is the first living relative a child forms an immediate bond with next to the mother who bore it for 9 months. If you're a boy, a father to you is your partner by anatomical make-up first and foremost, and that initial partnership paves the way for other forms of deep-rooted relations. If you're a girl, a father to you is the first man you fall in love with. The first man who teaches you what it is to be a man and how to treat a lady. The man whose actions and presence will later on shape your future encounters with other men. If your dad went out of his way to be a hero in your eyes, then you will surely see the good in every man that is to come after him, and compare that to a golden standard of love and affection. If your dad left your side, whether by choice or fate, then how can you ever know what that primal bond between a father and daughter is? If it was never granted, you start to search for it elsewhere. You start to ask for it from men who can't give it to you, because that is not their role in your life. Whether their current role is that of a friend or a lover or a teacher, you can't ask for that kind of elevated unrequited affection from these men. It is too heavy a burden to place on them. It is too difficult and painful for them to fill a void that has been empty for several years. Where do they begin? Or moreover, how do they begin? Is that why those relationships are doomed to fail? Because they can't give you the pseudo-paternalistic care that you need, or rather because you require too much of their ongoing presence in your life to feed your cycle of round the clock emotional instability?
A father is someone who won't mind you needing him all the time. It is he who welcomes your attachment with open arms, and then it is up to you to choose whether you want to thrive on that attachment or retract from it. In the Arab/Muslim world, children who lost both parents are called orphans. Children who lost only their fathers are also called "orphans", but not children who lost their mothers. Why is that? Why are we, the children of widows, considered along with those who have never known a loving touch from a father or mother? It became clear to me recently that it's because the child orphaned of a father is deprived from such a vital type of attachment, one that is sturdy and unshakable. It doesn't matter if it's an aggressive attachment or a delicate one, it is one that remains with you wherever you go, and imprints on your behavior and regard towards others.The same challenges will always face those who grow up without a father or a mother, but not having the former, means no one will readily step up to fill those shoes and be your hero. Men in general already have a hard time accommodating any kind of emotional vacancy, let alone an emotional vacancy of such magnitude. I recall feeling so angry when people called me an "orphan", since to me, the word had such a negative connotation. Ironically, it had an emasculating effect on me. It meant that such a person had no one, was unloved and unwanted, and I knew that wasn't my case when my mother always gave me the care and protection I needed. She was both the father and the mother, and I always thought I could rely on my uncles from both sides as accessories. As I grew older, I learned to belligerently accept that degrading attribute unto me. One reason for that was that I would glimpse a light twinkle in my uncles' eyes whenever they would speak about their daughters, and the pang of hurt and jealousy that accompanied those stares. Despite all the care and support they've given me hitherto, I always lacked one thing: Uniqueness. I would always have to share that twinkle with someone, hence I was not unique and I certainly did not belong to anyone. I just desired my own twinkle and a protector of my own. I wanted to be selfish because a basic right of mine had been snatched away from me. Selfishness was the mildest reaction anyone could have towards such an injustice. As a result of this selfishness and unwillingness to share, I was paving the way for resentment and aloofness from these pseudo-fathers. I always considered myself like everyone else, even though I was not the product of an orthodox family structure. But after seeing a friend of mine being held in a tight embrace by her father who was not regarding any of the other girls in the room but his own, I knew I would forever remain ostracized from that feeling, and thus I was different by default. That gesture made me feel something unfamiliar. At that moment, I wished for nothing more than to be in her place and to be held like that even for just a split second. I guess I just wanted to be aware of the difference between the nature of that embrace and an embrace that will inevitably lead to shame and regret. A father is someone who would rather be slaughtered than to see his own flesh and blood exploited. A father is someone who will be your platonic male friend and confidant and number one supporter so you wouldn't try to compensate such esteem by other means. What is unconditional love stemming from a man? Why do I have such a skewed perception of men now? I think they all have ill intentions and mean no good. I had just begun to develop a tiny crush on one of my professors, and the first time I went to see him in his office, he was raving on and on about his 4-year-old daughter, and that nauseated me more than it should have appealed to me. From that moment on, I despised him to the very core, but at the same time I also envied his daughter for the fucking amazing hero who took pride in her.
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| "My dear little girl, know that all souls are meant to be gone. So do not be overwhelmed with beautiful forbearance for the great one who has been stricken. Say, if you call me from behind your conserved veil and I failed to answer you Just know that, Abou Firas [Al Hamadani] the finest of all men Also had his youth stripped from him" |
Can the dead really communicate with their loved ones even after they depart this earth? We can hear and feel and see memories of them ingrained within, but is it possible to be able to connect with their world and make a new memory? I came to have faith in that, after I found this letter bearing these morose lines of poetry several years after my father's passing. By the illegible handwriting, I know they must have been written by father on his deathbed. I read them every night, and I marvelled at the ink that bled these lines of pain and love. I wondered about the hand that wrote them; the creases on its palm and the texture of the skin enveloping it. How did he know I would be in such pain? How did he know I was going to long for him and call his name to no avail? Did he express a wish for me to be veiled because he knew that his absence meant my judgment would be impaired in my frantic search for someone like him? Did he compare himself to a poet who lost his life at the peak of his youth because he knew this wasn't his time yet? How was he right about all these things? I was making rosy-eyed speculations on what it means to be a father, when all along I had this piece of paper as the most genuine and sincere of testaments. To be a father to your daughter, is to experience the pain she will experience when you are not there anymore. To be a father is to succeed in making her feel loved and looked after through the sole power of your potent words. To be a father means to recognize her neediness and attachment and turn a blind eye from it because your hands are tied, your time has come, but still shame overcomes you for not fulfilling your duty. You don't have to be to be a father to me. I'll never know your embrace or your scent or your voice, but I am left with your resolve, and that is good enough for the time being. I'll still be on my search to find the closest living thing to you, and if he should reject me as well, I will pray to God to reunite us in the hereafter. So until then, why would I need cheap substitutes and fleeting replacements when I am promised the real thing?...When I am promised you?
