'Daddy' dearest

I came into the office this morning and my colleague told me something really depressing. He is in mourning. The kitten he has been semi taking care of was attacked by a group of rabid dogs and it passed away this morning. He then tells me that this kitten was brought up by its FATHER, this male cat, who tends to it and keeps the little kitty safe. Unfortunately he wasn't around when the kitten was attacked. You can tell that the father cat really cares for it, said my colleague sadly. Of course, we all know how mother cats are attached to their young ones, but for a MALE cat to look after a kitten is just amazing. Male cats usually hump a female and then go about their business. But this male decided to stick by his kitten.

When I hear these kind of stories, I can't help but think of my own biological father (amazingly, he does cross my mind from time to time - very rarely but it does happen). I haven't seen him for..how long has it been? God knows, I think I was in high school. My last memory of him is of his nostrils flaring, jaw twitching, telling my sister and me off for wanting to buy a CASSETTE (yes, this was the cassette era) from this music store in KLCC. I specifically remember him telling us how he is not a "bank" and that we should get our mother to buy us unnecessary things like cassettes. Then he stormed off, expecting us to follow him to his car, but my sister and I fled the scene. I had tears running down my cheeks while we were walking, because I was so,so angry and in shock. We hadn't seen him for years before that particular outing, and I was foolish enough to think that maybe he had turned over a new leaf, maybe, just maybe, he wanted to start acting like a father again. I'm still kicking myself for being so hopeful and naive. For even thinking of giving him another chance.

That was the last time we ever saw or heard from him.

This year, in August, I am going to turn 25. My friends are off having babies or being pregnant. I'm at that age where I could actually have a child of my own (provided I get married of course). And with each passing year as I grow into a full-fledged adult, I am even more flabbergasted. I will never understand it. I will never understand how 'that man' (yes I call my biological father this) can do what he did to his own children. I was ten when my parents first got divorced and he left my mother for another woman. He simply packed his bags and left. Of course, we tried to follow him in another car, but that's another story. At first he made a meager effort to keep in touch with my sister and I - there were a few random outings, one or two birthday presents...there was also the day we fell asleep outside our house with our shoes on, waiting for him to pick us up, but he never came. Then the outings slowed down even more, and the birthday presents stopped coming entirely. And all this while, as a child, I thought this was normal. I thought maybe this is what happens when parents get divorced..eventually he'll fade away, and I accepted it. I accepted that he vanished out of my life, that years went by without me seeing him.

But now as a young adult, I see the person that he is. It's NOT normal to disappear on your children, it's NOT normal to not want to pay for your children's education - that my mother has to fight you in court every single time, It's NOT normal to be angry at your children when you actually do see them after YEARS of abandoning them. I will never understand, as an adult looking at another adult, how this human being could just get up and leave his two children, who were practically clinging at his feet telling him not to leave them, that they would become better children if he stayed. I will never understand how he somehow made it feel like it was our fault for not calling him, and asking to meet him.. shouldn't it be the other way round? How dare he, all those years I thought maybe it was partly our fault he was disappearing. Did he go out of his way to see us? No. I will never understand how a man can turn away coldly from his wife, his two daughters who were crying in his car the day after he left, pleading for him to come back. This is not me feeling a sense of abandonment, I am not sad for what he's done to both my sister and me, we grew up just fine without him in our lives (besides the fact that he may have scarred the way we look at relationships forever, but you'll have to wait for that in another blog entry). This is a feeling of disgust for the person that he is, the 'father' that he is now. Sure, he may have children of his own now with his new wife, god knows, but how does he sleep at night, knowing that he has two other children he simply discarded, to be with another woman? And the sick thing is, I think he sleeps just fine.

One day, I'll have my own children (Insya-Allah) and I know I will love them more than life itself. I will love them selflessly, and I will love them fiercely. I'll be there to protect them when they need me, I'll be there for them until they're old enough to go out into the world on their own. I'll be involved in their lives, be there when they first learn to ride a bike to when they tie the knot, to when they give me grandchildren of my own. And I know the thought of abandoning them will never, ever, EVER cross my mind.

If he was standing in front of me now, I'd ask him : Please daddy dearest, answer me this, if a male cat can look after his young so attentively, how can a 'father' like you who has two grown daughters simply flick them away with a finger? Where is your conscience? Or are you not equipped with one?

Oh daddy dearest, I suppose I'll never understand it all.