Father’s matter.

My dad passed away in July of 2021, my heart is still broken and forever will be.

So I want to talk about why Father’s matter and share some experience as a devoted daughter.

First something that I learnt way later than I should have is that parents are people too and that having parents that sacrifice their mental health for you is neither healthy nor desired.

The childhood memory that haunts me most is when my dad worked in a cheese factory, he was in his mid-late 40’s and in his homeland was a greatly respected award-winning teacher and chief examiner for West Africa for statistics. I was around 7 and he’d come home and put his hands on my cheeks because they’d still be cold from the factory, he was working in 2-5 degrees centigrade. For 12 hours. But he brought home Petit Filou and so I thought he had the greatest job ever. I didn’t realise how degrading it must have been for him to take cheek and bullying by people who he should have outranked.

I was blessed that I was able to tell him and show him that I loved him before  he died.

On the 22nd February 2020 I arranged a “family day out” where I took my parents to watch the Lion King in the West End of London, go for afternoon tea on the Thames and go to a famous restaurant. It was at that restaurant that I brought up that memory to my dad. Ever humble he shrugged it off. I was able to tell him I loved him and that I valued and appreciated the sacrifices he made to put food on my table and clothes on my back. That day was simply an appreciation for all he had done for me. I want to add, that there are thankfully many other instances of me spoiling the hell out of my dad. For his 70th birthday the previous August, I paid for him to go on a 9 day Caribbean cruise, for his 68th, after he beat cancer the first time, I paid for him to go to Rome (both times mum went too) and those were a few instances, there were birthdays Christmas’ father’s day when I could and did spoil the hell out of him. (point to note, I do take my mum out too) Because I’d spent over £3,000 on his 70th birthday I joked he wasn’t getting anything until he was 80. However despite the pandemic I was able to spoil him one more time for his 71st birthday. I took him and mum to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and threw him a small party. I have those videos, and they are memories I will cherish because he didn’t live to be 72.

When he was dying of pancreatic cancer, I was told to come out of work in Portsmouth on a Friday because dad didn’t have the weekend. I took the train to where the hospital and whilst on the train I wrote down all the things I loved about him, all the happy memories, including the above and I was determined to read it to him. I did get to. I also asked for his blessing. The last real words he said to me were “you will always have my blessing”

So now I come to the most traumatising part of my childhood, the fallout of which has defined my life to date. When I was 13, my dad became a Methodist minister and my childhood ended, I was no longer Annetta Mother-Smith. I was the Minister’s daughter.

Now for the grace. I could blame my dad for not holding off for 5 years allowing me to go to university and then doing whatever he wanted. He could have done that. But that would be inauthentic and if you love someone, you recognise there are times that they must do this for themselves. And that was what my dad did.

In a world where so many successful people are the product of single parent families, either through, death, “deadbeat dad’s” and incarceration. The 2 parent, married family is such a privilege, and that privilege should be acknowledged. As a black woman I’m taught that I “can do it all” but the truth is that I can, but I shouldn’t. There is a place for fathers. An important place. And it should be acknowledged and respected. Because when we don’t give room for father’s to teach our sons how to be men, we can’t then complain about the state of our young men. We also can’t complain about our daughters having “daddy issues”

Not only that, but even if I can do it all myself we all know that married 2 parent families give children the best chance of success, and success happens when you make things easy. So lets make things easy for our sons and daughters.

He was the epitome of the oppressed man. He took jobs he was overqualified for and always struggled to get jobs because he was overqualified. He was desperate to get back into teaching, and he did eventually, and then he was called to the ministry. He made it in this life despite having every obstacle set against him. He did that whilst serving others he did that with a smile on his face. I was in the privileged position to watch him take everything in his stride. That’s why I didn’t until his last breath believe that cancer would truly kill him. He’d beaten everything else, including cancer before. Why not this time. Because he taught me how to live with Grace and Courage, I am able to live with Grace and Courage, and I pray I’ll pass that down to my children.

And that is why dad’s matter.

Grace and Courage

Annetta Mother-Smith