The time is 01:30. I am huddled underneath my blanket, the light from night twitter bathing my face, and watching cute funny videos of babies that popped up on my timeline. I had bookmarked the videos from earlier in the day, waiting for this moment; when I could use the free night browsing to indulge in something that I could not afford — financially, emotionally or mentally, by having my own kids — while the sun was out. Like anything on the internet, I am on a downward spiral. And so each new video of a baby smiling leads to another video of an infant laughing at some magic trick, leading to another video of a toddler dancing to something innocuous yet becoming dangerously hilarious. Data does not limit me tonight, so I bask in the warmth that floods me by watching these videos; the happiness that comes from imagining me in the “family way”, playing with kids of my own. The images of me being a father run through my head like a toddler on a sugar high, and I feel truly ecstatic.
Somehow, like the cold does, my fears find a way to slip beneath my happiness threatening to choke me in this darkness. With each new video that I start now, I can feel my happiness begin to cower silently as my fear makes its presence known, sitting heavily on my chest and preventing me from finishing the video. My fear clothes itself in self-doubt and reminds me of how inadequate I am. In this darkness, it is the lighthouse that reminds of something that I can see with my eyes and my heart, not my heart alone; I am unworthy and inadequate. It reminds me in soft, stern tones: how can you be a good father when you have no idea who that looks like, what it feels like? How can you give what you don’t even know? It seems like the child’s laughter is mocking me now. I close the video and lock my phone. The lighthouse is all I have now.
The first father figure I knew was a senior in secondary school. I was in JS1 and my first day at boarding school had me searching the throng of wide eyed first timers like me who came around with their fathers. I did not expect that it was in this jail that I would find someone who would show me, what to me, seems like fatherhood. On nights like this, where my fear gains ever closer on my neck, I feel his hands pull me away as I remember what he told me the very first time I voiced this fear of being a deadbeat father to anyone: You are more than what your father was. You will do better than he ever did. Your fears are valid and you will be better for facing them. We do not talk much now. We haven’t spoken in over five years so it always shakes me how clearly I remember him and his words. How clearly I remember his face. He was the first one to acknowledge my expression with words, to show me that there was no fear in being vulnerable, to show me that being a man and showing my emotions were mutually exclusive concepts. It seems awfully strange that the one who was more of a father to me, than the man whose seed gave rise to me, was a boy who was in JS3.
I pull my blanket tighter around me, in an attempt to drive away the cold and in hopes of suffocating my fears. The thing is that sometimes as comforting as words are, they do not always drive the darkness away as effectively as light can. They might help to bring you closer to the light, but the darkness is still there. My mind is riddled with so many ways to fail in being a father to my kids. What if I abandon them because my fear of being inadequate drives me crazy and away from them? What if I become exactly the man my own father was? What if I shower them with material things but deny them my presence and deliberate attention? What if I become one of the men that give evidence to absolutes like “all fathers are absent fathers”? I turn my face upwards like I am a man drowning and in search of air.
Money does not a father make. This statement echoes into mind as my fears threaten to make my search for air futile. The last day I saw my father was in a store where he took my brother and I to get toys. You never know that the day you are seeing someone would be the last day. What would I have done differently? What could I have done differently, I was just five. I got a double decker bus model. My brother got a Mercedes model. The toys did not last more than a few months before they became useless and bound for the trash. I cannot remember the face of my own father. I remember his receding hairline because that is the curse he has left me to bear, but I do not remember his smile, his anger or even what his voice sounds like. I am staring at the ceiling, hoping that if I stare long enough, hard enough, I can force my mind into conjuring what he looks like tonight. I get nothing. What if I end up nothing more than a purse to my own children? A forgotten memory?
I cannot remember the face of my own father.
Tonight, I am Naruto the Hokage. Although, I have had glimpses of what fatherhood might be in form of the young man and the others who came after him; although I am filled with the best of intentions to love my children, my past has left me inadequate and I am failing. I am also not Naruto, because I have no noble excuse like protecting a village and everyone being my family. I am not Naruto because there is no excuse for bringing children into this world fully aware of your inadequacies to treat them right; only to make their pasts unworthy of recollection or to leave them riddled with scars and nursing fears. My fear does not allow me to hide behind such excuses. I am not the seventh Hokage.
I have heard that it is impossible to fight your past. In fact, many of our proverbs always remind us; that try as he might the leopard cannot change his spots. So I am aware that I can do nothing about these scars that adorn my being. I am scared that a time might come and these scars would break open and leave me acting out the way people do when raw wounds are toyed with. I desire to be a true father to my kids, and I am searching and learning. I am still trying to figure out what that means, beyond paying rent, school fees and for food. I want to be there for all their waking moments, for every step and every fall, till they tire of me while laughing and still pulling me close. I am not certain that I have a greater desire than this. But I do not know how. All I know are these fears.
I turn to my side, pick my phone and I unlock it. The warm orange of the night light bathes my face. The time is 01:55. I have not spent as much time as my fears would have me believe. My eyes are getting heavy. My head is beginning to beat the tunes that remind me that I am but a mere mortal and sleep is still required of me. I stare blankly at my lock screen and allow my fears to make themselves comfortable beside me in my blanket. They do not seem to be going away any time soon. I lock my phone. The lighthouse’s light is blinding and I row ever so quietly towards it. I fall asleep with my fears cradled right beside me.
Osondu
