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Friday 31 August 2012

My Father and I


              My father and I have neither a good nor close relationship. Yes, do not be surprise about it. I am just not the best for him. I can’t achieve what he wants me to be, I am not as strong as him and I know that he is disappointed at me. But, I just don’t know what to do about it. I know I could never be like my father.

                Living together with Okonkwo as a family, I hardly able to feel the love from him, as a father. He constantly nags me and beats me whenever I did something wrong, even a small little mistake. Perhaps he thinks that by doing so he could turn me into his idea of what a real man is. Not only that, I am always the frequent object of his criticism and remains emotionally unfulfilled. I felt so stressful to be the eldest son of the famous wrestler and leader of the Umofia clan. The high expectation of my father towards me is too hard to be achieved and I barely can breathe. Love- this is the only thing I hope from him but why can’t Okonkwo as my father give me? Why is it so hard to get even slightly of love from him? What so ever with the thought of being weak if he shows his love towards me? It is his pride more important or me, his son? I just couldn't understand.


                My father always encourages me to sit with him in his obi and then he will tell me the stories of the land –masculine stories of violence and bloodshed. I know it was right to be masculine and to be violent but I really have no interest in those violence stories he is interested in. I still preferred the stories that my mom used to tell me like the stories about the trickster figure the Tortoise, and about how Vulture worked to bring rain back to the people. Sometimes I just don’t feel like feigning that I no longer cared for women's stories. I really hope my father can understand me and let me be myself.

                There was once I saw Okonkwo beating Ojiugo, his youngest wife during the Week of Peace. Even when my mom and Okonkwo’ second wife pleaded him not to do so in the sacred week, my father just wouldn’t stop beating Ojiugo. I know him well. He is not the kind of person would stop beating someone half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess. Another even terrify experience I have was my father beat his second wife, Ekwefi and fired his gun at her during the Feast of New Yam. Thank God that he did not manage to shot her. If not, I really can’t bear to see the bloody scene. Can you imagine how violent my father is? I just couldn’t be like my father type of person. Surely, I will not beat anyone even he or she did mistake. 

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