Father Where art Thou?

There is a time in every little girl's life when her view of the world is from behind her mother’s skirts. The world is a hazy place of large shoes that threaten to trample you and descending hands that try to pry you from your mother’s leg. I was always comfortable behind my own mother’s Leteise and resisted all hands that tried to lift me except my father’s. Never my father’s. My father was a hardworking man, he was up at the crack of dawn every morning and sometimes his lunch would be sent to him in the fields or the borehole because he would not leave a job unfinished. It is because he was not always around that times he would lift me were so precious. I treasure the memories even to this day.



I lost him when I was 24 years and 8 days old. The constant figure of love, strength and comfort that I had known all my life was suddenly gone, but to where? I was confused, that is the first thing I felt: confusion. The pain would only come later when I looked at my mother’s face and saw for the first time what sorrow truly is. Even as we finally lay him in the ground I still felt a sense of my father being around. Weeks later I went home to look for him. The house still had his scent, a smell that always reminded me of soft mud and tubers and his pictures still hung in their correct places but he was not there. He was not in their bed when I woke up the next day or in his truck checking it over for a run to the kraal. I knew I had to grieve for my father, knew that if I didn’t let him go and accept that I would forever be without his love then I would never move on. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking for my father when the truth was I had lost him, did not want to be one of those sad people that never let go of their loved ones and live in a world apart from reality with a notion that they will be reunited. And so began my journey of facing my feelings and dealing with them. Grief is relentless; you cannot measure or set yourself a scale of how far you will go into the abyss of pain. The hours are long, dark and lonely for no matter how much another cares they cannot completely share in your pain. Your sanity is threatened, your faith shaken and your character tested as you traverse the long, ominous corridors of what seems to be the famous Hell place that the preacher man is always talking about. Time as it always does has passed and I can honestly say I have overcome the pain of losing my father, then why is it that I still feel him everywhere? When I see him in my dreams it is as if we were together only yesterday and every so often when I am afraid of facing something I feel a little push nudging me forward just as Papa would. I could not answer any of these questions so I made another trip, I had not looked for my father at the lands; I had not searched the fields and the house.



Two weeks ago I was at the lands with my 18 year old niece and a family friend, my niece and I looked through the house as we both had not been there in a very long time. We winded up in the bedroom last and she was going through the drawers of his bedside table while I was looking through the closet. I felt silly doing this and wondered what was going through my nieces mind so I asked her “What are you looking for in there?” she shrugged absentmindedly and asked me the same question to which I replied “I’m looking for my father.” She turned and looked at me for a long while before saying “So was I.” When I walked in the empty fields I started to look around me and felt as if I was looking through my father’s eyes. It was the sky line which he had seen almost every day since he was a child and the land belonged to his father, I smelled the earth and the cattle as they drank. I thought I could feel the peace he must have felt when he was here and for the first time since his passing I knew where my father was. He is in my heart.



I carry my father’s wisdom, his blessings and his love with me wherever I go, I know now that I cannot find him on any place even if I search this entire earth, I don’t need to because I carry him within myself. I am my father when I am wronged but refuse to be vengeful, I am my father when I give with an open heart and no hope for reward and also in the way I stand with my weight resting on one foot and arms akimbo when I’m thinking on my feet. Death has not won after all for I still have my father’s memories, he is not lost. The abyss of darkness has not swallowed me and I have emerged from the experience with a more resilient character and my faith renewed. With pain I have found the stronger and enduring part of me, I have learnt compassion and how to love and appreciate every day of my life. I hope my father is happy, i hope he is reunited with his own father and that he knows no more suffering. If I could talk to him now I would tell him how much I love him, how much my mother misses him. I would tell him how beautiful it was when it rained in April and that he would have loved it. Above all I would thank him for being there for me in the best ways he could and for his love, for although he was not always around to express it I know with an unshakeable certainty that my father loved me.