My (other) Father

Sometimes I wish I had known my father. Other times, I would feel lucky that I didn't. Perhaps if I had known him I would have had a template to work with, to mold into while still having some room to edit as I wish. But perhaps I'm lucky, in a way, to not have known him. I am left completely without any idea of what the embodiment of manhood looks like, left to grow into a man I have yet to know and discover. Perhaps the transition from boy to man is one factor in the difficulties and curve balls that I face every single days. I may have moved into a new country and transitioned into a new culture while I was at the beginning of that stage. Many people state that the transition happens a lot later than 18 or 19, perhaps not even until the mid or late 20s. But perhaps I just happened to grow up too quickly, or maybe the people I heard so from don't know what they're talking about. 

So what does it mean to be a man, and when would I reach that state? Will my hunger for growth in character stop? Will my desire and yearning for knowledge and experience grow dull?

My mother always said that a man is judged by his actions, and nothing else. “If manhood was by mustaches, then the cockroach would be the manliest of them all. Man is stance, action,” as she would assert (Translated from Arabic). Over the years I've grown to understand my mother's proverb a little bit better. Manhood, as far as my mother was concerned, was about heart, about balls. She maintained that “a male is a male,” (but honestly, over the course of my life I also heard her say that “a woman could be of a hundred men”). She always pushed me to be there for my family, to have my presence known and acknowledged, because in the end, I was the man of the house, even if I was only 10 years old. 

I recall how she would talk about my father. He was of “true nature” as she would put it, and that “no one could ever say anything bad about your father, ever”. According to my mother, my father was hard working, managed to support his entire family (which was pretty big), and still build a very successful business out of scratch. 

She wanted me to grow up to be better than he was, but I would like to believe that she realized that that would be extremely difficult without him or my older brother around. I would also like to believe that part of the reason why she let me go off to college halfway across the world on my own (something unusual where I come from) was that she realized that she has done all she could in guiding me both as a mother and as a substitute father. Without my father around, it was time for me to find my way, on my own.

I would like to believe that I did the best I could with what I had, but I know that I didn't. If I count the blessings I have that my father didn't at my age I would go bury myself in a hole. If I compare the adversities that we experienced, I don't know what I would do with myself. If I compare myself with my mother, even if I forget the advantage that being male in an Arab country gave me, I would probably start crying, so I'm not going to do that.

I always found my mother's ability to judge people astounding and spot on. The only problem with that was that she believed that I could achieve anything I wanted to, be everything I ever dream of. If I could place my absolute trust and faith in God, try my absolute best, and leave the rest to Him, I would never fail. My mother tried to implant certain religious teaching in me, as any Egyptian mother would do, but she did it in such a way that still makes me think about them to this day. Those teachings would sometimes lose their religious sense and take on another form that seems to adapt to life as I experience it. 

Recently, as I started recalling what my mother would say or try to teach me when I was younger, something strange happened. I felt like every step of mine is guided in a certain way. It was as if I was given the option to choose what to put in my heart and what to say and do, and whatever my choice was, it would be amplified. If I determine the path, the destination, and the means, then I can drop thinking about the outcome altogether.  

Perhaps that's what my mother meant after all. Perhaps what she meant was that a man is only as good as the decisions he makes as a result of what he chooses to put in his heart.

But then again, I'm only 20, what do I know?

A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandchildren about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to them. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandchildren thought about it and after a minute one of them asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

(Note: I apologize if this seems fragmented. I tried to formulate my thought process and memory recollection as best as I could. If I find a better way to say it, I will come back and edit this)