Papaw

I was listening to this song with my papong in the car and it just made me wonder at the father-daughter relationship. Here is a man who saw your fetal body develop and grow, whose heart faltered with every beat of yours, who stood the hours by the bedside of the woman he loved while she laboured and saw you take your first breath.

Here's the man who taught you your timetables when you were six, the man who cut paperdolls for you, the man who drove you from one end of the earth to the other, the man who cut fruits every morning for you, made juice, cooked, washed, cleaned. Here's the man who works to support you, to give you education, music, food, clothes. You are the product of 18 years of his life.

I suppose his protectiveness when it comes to other men (boys?) in my life should come across as no surprise. It is this mental radar that puts him on alert the moment he senses predators. He always has the tendency to put down anyone I'm involved with- their names become horribly distorted to some female version, they get labelled emo, they're blur, he wants to puke. It makes me want to laugh and choke all at the same time. I anticipate the day he walks me down the aisle and gives me away; I can imagine the reluctant arm, but the huge trust that he places on that young man's shoulders.

It is not that I am any amazing person. It is just that parental love is such that the ugliest parasitic ingrates are still loved.

I'm amazed with parents as a whole. I remember when I broke my arm when I was eight and was crying in the playground. It was my parents who rushed out of church and put me into a cab. It was my mother who lent me her extra-big tweety bird shirt so that I could fit my arm in, and it was my mother who showered me without my plaster getting wet. When I burnt my leg one year later, it was again my parents who F1-ed me home and stuck me in the shower to run cool water over the burn, and then it was my dad who cleaned the wound and creamed and bandaged it for me. When I had an ear infection it was him who gave me my menthol solution daily to sniff to clear the ear.

Who else would do this for you?

Here are my earthly parents. And then I have my heavenly father; one who gave me the breath that I have, one who knows me through and through, from my darkest moments, my weakest moments, my happiest moments. Here is my heavenly father who is there with me always, but whom I often fail to remember, whose words and truths I have yet to hide in my heart. Here is my heavenly father who is so great, whose power transcends anything on earth, and who yet knows me, insignificant and minuscule as I am.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Honour your mother and father.