My Father’s Words

By

Obododimma Oha

If you  have read my essay, “Talking with My Father” (https://x-pensiverrors.com/blogspot.com/2019/03/talking-with-my-father.html), you will notice that my father and I worked out the best of our relationship and understood our roles in life by talking intimately. He was careful and philosophical in choosing his language and I now understand the power of expression in the mentoring he was giving me. So, there is enough reason for me to be interested in his words. Those words are various utterances he made in response to certain situations; so, one is not in any way trying to regurgitate single lexical choices here to articulate his idiolect, as linguists would call it. One is only interested in figuring out how his words, his voice, is still the guiding light in my life as a son and how I have found them indispensable in my journey of life (which was what he wished).

My father has been dead for many years, and I long for his presence, particularly his voice, in song or speech. I long to listen to the music of his voice everyday, but that time he was talking to me in flesh and blood, probably I thought that I knew it all and that he was wasting his time. Now, his words are good music to my ears. I doubt they were so then. The little effort that I made to appreciate his presence and his words was the recording of a conversation that I had with him (in cassette) when I was still an undergraduate and he was still around, ready to tell me about his life. Now, that voice of his I took away in a cassette is the greatest possession I have. When I listen to the cassette, to the music of his voice, he comes back live and talks to me, talks with me!

My father was my first professor, obviously. I am sorry for those who have no fathers or have never had one. They lack rare and unique professors! As I said, my father was my first and highly devoted professor. He was the one that taught me some life skills, whenever he opened his voice or performed an action. A great teacher, one could see his interest and love in whatever he said or did. Fathers who are fathers are one’s best teacher, if a son. Fathers are the most important teachers for their sons, mothers for the best teachers of their daughters. My mother taught me well when she insisted that I respect and honour my father. She saw me becoming my father. One should, at least, love oneself and get ready to take over the baton.

Consider that monkey jumping from branch to branch, with its young one holding it firmly at the chest side or the stomach. Is that not why the Igbo say that Anụ ọzọ anaghị akwọrọ enwe nwa (Another beast does not carry the monkey’s young one for it)? Actually, the monkey does not tolerate it! The mother monkey is also teaching its baby to hold this world firmly. Above all, holding the presence of the parent (as that of a father) matters greatly. He will go and you will step in one day. It is inevitable.

Apart from being my best professor on life skills through his words, father was my thinker, my sage, my philosopher. That time he felt frustrated and said in a kind of proverb, Ihe na-ewutem bụ na nkịta m na-egburu ngwere asabeghị anya (“What I am sad about is that the puppy for which I am killing lizards has not yet opened its eyes”), did I try to understand him? Did I reassure him that the puppy has started opening its eyes and can see the world? When puppies are born, they spend days in the kennel before they could see. It is as if they are in this world but not yet in this world. It is as if they are still asleep! So, they cannot see the dead lizards and appreciate the love shown through meat.

My father’s words help me, guide me, as I open my eyes and move from darkness to light. My father’s words are kind of lamp that helps to see. The puppy needs it, and, in fact, that lamp is the opening of my eyes through puppihood to adulthood.

The words are a dictionary; one cannot enumerate or list them. What is important is that one remembers and uses them. What is important is how the diction of my father is part of the dictionary that is me. Everyone is or should be a dictionary, with voices of the past colouring the voices of the present.

One day, my father uttered what was tough, very tough for me to comprehend. He said: “Eziokwu, a taala m mmiri eze hụ na ọ dị alịghị” (“Truly, I have chewed water and can that it is tough ; it has muscles, tough muscles”). So, water that is mere liquid has muscles? It was very difficult for me to comprehend, so I asked him to explain. He rather looked at me and smiled. He said and I translate: “Don’t tell me you are a poor specimen and cannot figure out how words costume themselves with words and use this craft to approach reality!”  He swallowed hard and  I swallowed hard, drinking from his eyes. I didn’t need to ask him to explain every word. Life would later challenge me to understand them!

Sometimes, I feel like talking with my father, to listen to the music of his voice or to hear his ancient proverbs. Sometimes, I wish I could join him as he sang through his work, to be part of his work. But he died many years ago, handing the baton over to me and asking me not to be the weak link in the chain. My father may have been  reformatted and may have lost all his files, including the ones with which he could remember this world and our relationship. He may have been redeployed Whatever may be the case, father’s memory makes me still soldier on in the race till I brace the rope!