18 Sunday Jun 2017
Posted in Poetry, United States
Father said not to worry about anything.
He was working to provide for my needs.
And I believed him.
Father said he would never let anyone hurt me.
He was there to protect me, Mother, and my brother Paul.
And I believed him.
Father said not to worry about climate change;
the science is still debatable.
And I believed him.
Father said the abortion of an unborn child is an abomination.
Life is sacred. Only God can take a life.
And I believed him. Continue reading
16 Sunday Jun 2013
Posted in About Me, Brazil, Family Life, Guyana, Relationships, United States
Source: forum.xcitefun.net
Last Wednesday, the father of a dear friend in Brazil would have celebrated his ninetieth birthday. He died twenty-three years ago, leaving a void in my friend’s life. Maria described her father as a quiet, simple, and observant person who did everything he could for his children. His greatest legacy to her was his kindness towards others less fortunate.
Once, Maria recounted, on the street where they lived, the father of a poor family died. Knowing that the family of the deceased could not afford the burial costs, Maria’s father stopped by at the family’s residence and sent her in to call his widow. He told the woman to bury her husband and send the bill to him for payment.
For Maria this was such a great lesson that, since that incidence, she cannot be indifferent to the suffering of others.
After reading Maria’s story about her father, I thought about my own father’s legacy. In Guyana, Land of Six Peoples, my father’s close friends included blacks, East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, and people of mixed race like he was. They frequented our home for barbecues on Saturday nights. When, as a British colony, we were occupied by white British soldiers, he even entertained my aunt’s British boyfriends. (For a number of years, my mother’s younger sister lived with us.)
Through my father’s example, I learned to look beyond the differences of our diverse peoples, discerning what we shared in common as individuals.
Interestingly, for both me and Maria, the way our fathers related with people outside of the home determined the way we relate with the world.
What is your father’s enduring legacy? As a father, what will be your enduring legacy to your sons and daughters when you are gone?
17 Sunday Jun 2012
Posted in About Me, Family Life, Guyana, Human Behavior, Relationships
My Father, P.E. Fung – Photo taken during a hunting trip in Guyana
Our fathers are rarely everything we would like them to be. Many of them focus all of their energies on their work to provide us with a safe home, a good education, and all the stuff that makes us happy. Many others turn their backs on us while we are still young, leaving us to be raised by our mothers or other relatives. Some of them, like my father, are emotionally challenged: unable to express their love for us.
My father seemed to like spending time with his friends more than he did with me and my four siblings. He and his many friends went fishing; shooting birds; and hunting deer, wild pig, and wild cow (tapir). As the “cook-man” among his friends, he prepared and cooked the wild meat killed during their weekend hunting trips. “Cook-night” was party night in our back yard.
In our home, my father enforced the rules of good conduct. At a time when corporal punishment was acceptable behavior, he did not spare the rod and spoil the child, as he believed. We feared him for the licks he meted out.
After leaving home at eighteen, I learned over time to forgive my father for the shortcomings that negatively impacted our lives. With parenthood came my perception of the difficulties he must have faced to father five children during turbulent and uncertain times in our country’s history. I realized that, given his circumstances and shortcomings, he did the best that he could as a father to direct us along the right path.
Reflecting on my life with my father with an open heart, I learned to appreciate all that I had inherited from him: a love of books and reading, music, and the natural world. (I do not know from which side of the family I inherited my talent for drawing and painting.) My fascination for international trade was also his gift to me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my father was an import clerk. He was responsible for preparing the mustard-yellow customs forms (sometimes done by hand at our dining room table), taking care of bank import documents, and clearing the goods at the port.
Eleven years ago, my father died alone in his home in Georgetown, Guyana. We had all left him for distant shores. (I was the last to leave Guyana.) But, despite his stormy marriage, he never abandoned us. I would like to believe that staying with us was his way of demonstrating his love for us.
No matter how old we get, the influence of our fathers in our lives, for good or for bad, remains with us. This Father’s Day, I prefer to remember the good times I spent with my father and to think of him with love in my heart.
