Hi Daddy,

I feel bad we never got to spend more than three years on earth. My faint recollection of us was the day you came back home with some black liquid all over your face and shirt. I later heard something from your car engine had spilled on you. You survived that but didn’t survive the next car accident. Yes they didn’t take me to the hospital to see you as you lay in coma. Let me also tell you that I have no recollection of the funeral. I didnt see you lie in state nor did i sing at your service of songs. I cried because I wasn’t used to Isoko breeze and water not because you were gone.

I hear you were a great guy. You registered a company for your three children. You were intentional about the future and sweet with words so you named your kids Erezi, Akpezi and Okezi and the company Emoezi. In Isoko, these names mean: good journey, good life and good gift and the company good children. That’s refreshing. You invested in shares and while you were here, Lagos knew there was a great engineer who faithfully served God in his local assembly. You took in your family and friends with ease. I remember the house was always filled with people but they left after I stopped seeing you at home. I thought you all went somewhere together until the Landlord kicked us out. Smiles.

I didn’t get to know what a father was like. I just heard your stories. My friends are scared of their fathers. Some run into their rooms when he comes in. Some fathers pay all the bills of their kids: I wish you were here to always do that though. Other fathers are cool with their chidren till they do something wrong. Most fathers love their children but are not expressive about it and so the children can’t tell. I know one father who kissed his wife in front of his kids, played with the kids a lot and was a proper gist partner, the kids would always run to him when they have fallen or made mistakes. But he also died. So I am wondering do you, all great dads, just like to die and leave us here to find our feet?

Daddy, your best decision ever was to marry my mum! No death wasn’t. You married this woman who made us know the true love of the father. She introduced us early to Him. When you left she took us every Sunday to know more about him and every day she taught us how to talk to him. Like you would have wanted she didn’t remind us to talk to you when we were sad but Him. She told us that His son is Jesus and was the father of all fathers. Everyday she will read to us letters from His book. In the day, we read the letters to the Romans, Ephesians and Galatians; and at night we will read the Psalms and Proverbs. I later read somewhere that Jesus died too like you. But the joy in my heart when we saw Him rise again and live forever. She taught us that He now lives in us, and He is our righteousness and direction. She reminds me that you were led by our father to marry her and that’s sweet. I am sure you should be proud that I still love Him.

Permit me Daddy to speak to other Dads. Every dad MUST play a role in a home. As men, we are wired to protect, provide and lead the family. This means making the right decisions and getting the right visions. It is such an important office. A man is no longer a boy that plays around and collects. A man makes decisions and expects respect when he makes them. A father loves. That love must be constant. A father must be able to preach the gospel to his kids in words and deeds. YES that is the office of a dad. It will be interesting and easy to explain to a 5 year old what the gospel is if the dad plays the right roles. Always there, wonderful, counsellor, loving, a priest of the house, and trusting. That is who a dad should be not one who commands respect, instills fear and makes the children inferior. This is not a biblical fact.

I understand that you may think that fathering a child is only biological. So chromosomes divided and developed into tissues and cells and bla bla. But it’s more than these. It’s a tale of love that becomes a shadow of the Father’s relationship with us. That’s what the family on earth is. A shadow of eternity. So like Christ loves the church, a husband should love the wife. And like the Father in the good Samaritan proverb, the earthly father must be ever loving to his children. That love means a father must care for the child, He must not keep record of wrongs, he must trust, and he must also teach. Fathers must take every interaction with the child to relate the gospel. Teach, pray, lead and above all trust your child’s decisions. Know that you are not the alpha and omega of the child’s life: constantly point the child to God!

Fathers must remind their children about eternity; they must tell their children truths and also let them know about frailties of the flesh. Earn respect and let your children know that you are both friend and father, counsellor and conspirator, comforter and companion. This must be beyond the gender, political beliefs, sexual orientation and even religious beliefs. Our God loves regardless of all these and men have been given the duty to love. Love even to death in that analogy.

My daddy did indeed love and my Father loves even more. Daddy i love you. I miss you and I know we will surely be reunited and this time as joint heirs of our Father’s kingdom!

Happy fathers’ day to all the great fathers out there. We love you, you might not say, not want to say nor know how to, but we see you and hope one day you express this love in more ways than at the end of calls.