YEARNING FOR A HUG

Staying with my grandmother all day long, seeing my parents in the evening as they would return from work was a treat in itself. I would spend the entire day waiting to tell them all about my day in the evening. Seven o’clock every evening as the metal gate of our ancestral house would cling, I would rush straight to embrace my mother even before she could enter the house. It was a great feeling. This went on until I went to college.

Even though college was great, sitting in the hostel room discussing each other’s family often filled me with nostalgia for the times when each evening brought with it a warm embrace from my mother. One day suddenly realization struck. Every time I clung to my mother, my father would adoringly look at us, smile, and silently go inside.

As Mummy would make me sit in her lap, feeding me and listening to my unending stories, Papa would keep looking at us from side of eyes. I know he loves me. He loves me more than anybody ever can. I can see it in his eyes. They say fathers love their daughters dearly. I am a boy, my parents’ only child, and my father loves me like he would love a daughter.

Father's Day

But, society. Society taught him never to express. He would be considered a weak man, if he made his child sit in his lap to feed him. He would be considered a weak man, if he cried when his child was hurt. He would be considered a weak man if he kissed his child on the forehead and told him that he loved him.Today, when I come home and hold my mother in a rather tight embrace, Papa continues to hold his newspaper to his face, peeping at us from the side of his eyes, yearning for a hug. Patriarchy might have crippled emotions, but make sure you rise above them. This father’s day gift you father with the hug that he has been yearning for, for years now.