Soul searching on Friday 13th

If I have to sound deeply religious, I will use the phrase, ‘it is well with my soul’.

Well, that is where the state of my mind is at present. I am currently on 21 days of prayer and fasting, and in doing this I have found a lot of peace inside of me. The fact is I do find a lot of time to myself where I do a lot of soul searching and luckily for me, this is the time I am more creative in a literary sense. I don’t know if it is the peace I find or the time that is created, but I just seem to find a lot of time for writing when I am in the soul searching mode.

Unfortunately my 2016 was a busy year and I didn’t get enough time to write as much as I should have, but I still got moments where I just sat to reflect or indeed do soul searching. Time to look back on life and looking at life retrospectively is as important as making resolutions, which many people do. It’s a very personal journey for me to honestly look into the dark crevices inside of me. At times this process is a never ending pursuit of melancholy and at times a very blissful jaunt into the past. 13 days into the New Year and 5 days into my 21 days fasting has brought me to yet another point of reflection.

The only problem with 13^th January is that it is a memorial day for my late father, Godwin Aongola Nambayo thus all my reflections get lost in the memory of my father. This being a memorial day, I also take time to find fissures in my psyche and consciousness to celebrate the little time we spent together and thinking about what could have been had he not died that early in my life. I am nearly in tears as I write this, not knowing whether to be cheery or fearful for what could have been and what life eventually turned out to be all these years.

What would I have learned from my father as a boy growing up? What would I have learned from him in my teen years? What would I have learned from him as a young man approaching adulthood? What would life have been with him around as I became a man in my own mould, becoming a husband and becoming a father myself?

I can never clearly answer these questions, but I still need to ask myself these questions and evidently this always happens on or around January 13^th. I am not a superstitious man hence do not look at my forlorn blog and relate this to the date of the post, Friday 13^th, it’s a coincidence. For 2017, it is a coincidence I take heartily since it can serve as my blog title.

I go through this a lot. It’s not even the first time I am writing about how I miss my father. Of course I have had my mother, brothers and sisters all these years. However, one can’t really call a mother ‘dad’ and because of that they cannot replace the void a father leaves. Mothers have a very special place in children’s lives but they are not fathers, no one can replace a father. This is more difficulty for me because as a father to a boy, myself, at times I struggle with emotion and ask myself what being a father to my boy really entails. Of course this is not something you learn in a class by sitting behind a desk as a professor delivers lecture after lecture. I also know that the last thing I would have wanted is my dad to sit me down and tell me how to raise my child(ren).

Although I would not take kindly to being told how to raise children by my father, having to live a life from childhood to my adulthood with a father present would have given me some lasting lessons. I am not even talking of father figures but biological fathers as the bonds and special connections between father and son are different from a father figure. Because of this, I have always come to the conclusion that the role a father plays is extremely important in the life of his family. My ruminations today may not be grounded on any scientifically proven notion, but it is important for me to get rid of this subjugation in order to be a good father. I have to be a father myself. I have to wake up from this longing and rummage for my own father.

But being a father is more than just providing the sperm that fertilizes the ova. It is about the inspiration and counsel a father gives to his children. This means more than just biological fatherhood but inspiring the next generation through my children. I know in the mind of my son, am probably a superhero greater than superman or Spiderman, but I should look further than just my son because as a parent it’s my responsibility to inspire the next generation at least even just my close family and descendants.

Menace to Society: The 21st century version

For a few years now, I have been awoken to the fact that no one else is going to free me from my limiting introspections and musings on the loss of my father but I have to quickly validate myself as a father that I am, and always thinking and acting accordingly. This to me has had to be the beginning of the pursuit of a more meaningful life. It is well with my soul.

The last few years I have seen many teen-age boys and girls seriously lacking good moral behavior in the way they carry themselves in simple things like etiquette and being respectful to other people especially the elderly. You drive to a mall in the evening and you find little boys and girls loitering the car parks seemingly drunk and not caring about anything. These teen-age boys and girls are growing into men and women every year and eventually becoming fathers and mothers themselves. Unfortunately, the father of today is so busy they don’t have enough family time and we are letting our children to be brought up by their peers.

I watched the black American movie menace to society in the 1990’s, and in that movie, little boys were raised by gangsters and they joined gangs at tender ages because they did not have their fathers present as most black fathers were serving jail sentences. This in my view is similar to what we face today in the 21^st century, only we are jailed by our businesses and jobs. Fathers have no time for their children and they end up being raised by their peers and we realize very late that we haven’t been there enough to father these children.

I am always nearly in tears when I arrive to this realization and look back at all the long hours (weekends inclusive) put in at the office away from my family. The fact is, work is what puts bread on the table for our children, and hence the key has to be how we balance the off days and our evenings. Why would I spend all my evenings at a bar or pub at the expense of my family? I am fearful that many a father spends a lot of time away from their families and only very late on in life face up to reality that massive changes have taken place in the lives of their children. 

I have to acknowledge the role that the process of soul searching is playing in my life, it is well with my soul.