Yesterday, while many people celebrated fathers, I found myself thinking not about grand gestures, but about a phone call at six in the morning.
Without fail, my phone rings at about six every day. I already know how it begins.
“How did you sleep?” Then: “How’s the weather over there?” And eventually: “What are your plans for today?”
What once felt routine now feels like a gift. I did not know I was receiving it. Because one day, I know, the phone will stop ringing.
The man behind the call
My father is not the hero I imagined when I was young. He is something better. He is a human being who has spent a lifetime choosing his children and family. He continues to do so.
He is stubborn. He is proud. And I love him in a way that has grown deeper and more complicated with every year.
Father’s Day stirs something I cannot fully name. It carries the weight that comes with understanding, finally, what someone has done for you all along.
A foundation of dialogue
Meaningful dialogue has always sat at the heart of our relationship. Even to this day, that has never changed.
Growing up, we spoke about the structure of many African homes. Children obey without question because an elder has spoken. He never wanted that for me.
He wanted me to think. To reason. To push back. He believed a child who only obeys lacks education. That child has been domesticated instead.
A systematic review in Acta Paediatrica found important connections. The quality of father-child communication links to fewer behavioural problems, better academic outcomes and stronger emotional regulation. These effects endure into adulthood.
My father spoke to me like I mattered. I only understood what that meant much later.
“Andithandi ukubetha”
I once asked my dad why he chose conversation over corporal punishment.
“Corporal punishment is the laziest form of punishment,” he said. “It gets compliance. Quick results. But it does not teach a child why they were wrong.”
I recall him disciplining me with his belt twice. It never began in anger. It always began with the same words.
“Andithandi ukubetha.” I do not like beating you.
Then came the explanation. The standard. The expectation. The lesson mattered more than the punishment. He parented for character, not compliance.
Child development studies confirm what he practised by instinct. The quality of the father-child relationship shapes a child, not the strictness of discipline.
When the roles shift
He has now recently entered his senior years. I find myself learning that ageing teaches children lessons too.
It teaches us that our parents are human. Therefore we should offer grace. That they come with contradictions , that they too become tired. Vulnerable. Resistant to help.
A particular grief comes with watching a parent slow down. Not the sudden grief of loss, but the slow grief of transition. Of watching someone who once carried you begin to need carrying.
Today, I find myself telling him to rest. To slow down. To let people in. To have boundaries.
Sometimes the shifting of roles arrives before you are ready for it. But love is not the absence of difficulty. Love is extending the same patience he once extended to me.
The hero who never was invincible
My father may have faced disappointments he never fully named. But he never failed at being a father. And if you meet me, chances are you have already met him.
He is still my hero, not because he is invincible, but because he never was. I still find comfort in the memories of him tucking me into bed at night.
He showed up for the milestones and the ordinary moments. He raised me with intention. Yes, the memories may sound ordinary, but they are anything but. They are gifts.
The gift of presence
In a country where father absence has become so common, society and many children grow up expecting less. I never had to wonder whether my father would be there. I never had to question whether I mattered to him.
I never had to compete for his attention or earn his presence. His love was not something I had to chase. It simply existed. He showed up consistently, faithfully and intentionally.
A word to the fathers
This column is not a performance of gratitude. It is an invitation.
To every present father, what you do in the quiet moments is not small. You are building something in your child that no school or institution can replicate. It does not require perfection. It requires presence.
To those who have lost their fathers, what they poured into you does not disappear when they do. It lives in how you show up for others.
For those who carry hard memories
I am aware that not everyone reads this column with warmth. For some, Father’s Day is a hard day.
Absence is not always physical. Some fathers live under the same roof and remain unreachable. Present in body, absent in attention.
Children are not only looking for a roof over their heads. They are looking for a witness to their lives.
You can still give the explanation you never gave. You do not have to be perfect to begin. You only have to begin.
Say the hard thing. Say: I was not there in the way I should have been. I am here now.
That sentence, spoken with sincerity, has rebuilt things that looked beyond repair.
Because one day, the phone will stop ringing. And there is no preparing for that silence
