I was only two years old when my mother died. I was too young to understand what death meant. I did not know what i had lost then, and i did not have memories of my mother that i could hold on to. I simply grew up knowing that she was not there.
But i had my father.
When i think about my childhood now, i realize that i witnessed my father play a mother's role in our lives in ways i could not fully understand as a child. My father will always wake up very early in the morning to prepare food for me and my siblings. There was always food for us to eat before leaving the house and something packed for us to take to school. While other children were getting ready for school with their mothers around, my father was already awake, making sure his children were prepared for the day.
He bathed us too.
He went to the market, he always bought the things we needed. He made sure there was food in the house and took care of the countless little responsibilities that came with raising children. At the time, i did not stop to think about how much work it was. to me, it was simply part of life.
My daddy would wake up, prepare our food, make sure we were ready, and somehow find the strength to do everything else that needed to be done.
My grandmother was also there for us, and i will always acknowledge the role she played in our lives too. We were not without family or care. She helped us in many ways, and her presence meant a lot to us. But even with my grandmother's help, my father carried a special responsibility, he was not only our father, but in many ways, he became the mother we did not have.
I did not understand the weight of that when i was little. I only understood that he was there.
I did not ask why he was the one cooking our meals or why he was the one bathing us. I did not wonder whether he was tired after going to the market or whether he had his own worries. Children do not always understand the sacrifices adults make for them. We simply see what is in front of us and accept it as normal.
But as i grew older, however, i started looking back at those ordinary moments differently.
Waking up early to cook was not just cooking, bathing his children was not just bathing us, going to the market was not just going to the market. Making sure we went to school with food to eat was not just another daily routine.
They were acts of care, they were sacrifices.
They were the things someone had to do when children needed to be raised, and my father did them.
Sometimes, I wonder what it must have been like for him. He lost his wife, yet he still had children who needed him. He was grieving too, but he still had to be strong for us. There was no time for him to simply stop because life become difficult. We still had to eat, had to go to school, had to be bathed, cared for and provided for.
Life continued, and somehow, he continued with it.
He may have had days when he was tired, he may have had moments when he missed my mother deeply, he may have had his own fears about raising us, but as children, we did not see those things.
What we saw was Daddy.
The man who woke up early, cooked when grandma was not around, took us to school, went to the market, and made sure we were cared for.
That is what I witnessed.
I witnessed a father stepping into responsibilities that he may never have expected to carry alone. I witnessed him care for his children in ways that went beyond what i thought a father was supposed to do. I witnessed love in ordinary things, the food prepared before school, the baths, the trips to the market, and all the little things i probably took for granted as a child.
I never knew my mother.
That is one thing i cannot change. I cannot remember her voice, her smile, or the way she would have cared for me. I cannot look back at childhood memories and find her there.
But i can look back and find my father.
I can remember the things he did, i can remember that when one parent was no longer there, he did not abandon the responsibilities that came with raising us, he stepped forward and gave us the care he could.
Today, when i look back at my childhood, i realize that i was witnessing something special without knowing it.
I witnessed love without knowing its name, i witnessed sacrifice without understanding its cost.
Although later on, he remarried, but we were all grown before that. But the truth is that i witnessed my father being a father, and i also witnessed him being a mother too.
