when fathers leave.. and stay

Every January, for five years now, I plan to write my magnum opus. The article to beat all others that I've written ever since I've learned to string one sentence to another.

January is my Papa Boy's birthday month. And when he died some few years ago, I promised myself that I will write about him and create my first-born's memento on paper.

But somehow, Januarys have come and gone and I have always found myself at a lost on how to write about my father. How he was as a major influence in my life. How he loved me dearly but struggled on how to make it apparent in his own way. And how I fiercely loved him but did not understand him.

I think I got a little help this year. I received a short story in the email and it simply puts across something that I believe in fathers.

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone.

He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a man.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night, the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.

He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

I know the story speaks of our Father in heaven. But somehow it touches the right chord in me. It is a story that I need. To be assured that even when fathers leave because lung cancer gets them away from us .. still they stay because their love never ends.

My magnum opus is still to be written and I am certain I will get around to writing it. But as January comes to close this year, I am calmed. Happy birthday Papa.