Reminder of struggle to be a dad

You’re getting married on Monday, my son. You won’t remember the day I first saw you, but I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

It was the Thursday before Francois Pienaar and Kitch Christie’s Transvaal team won the Super 10 for the first time. I walked with you from the theatre to a room where they counted your fingers and toes before they bathed and dressed you and put you in my arms. You looked at me with bright, uncertain eyes. I was just as unsure of myself.

“Hello,” I said. And then, with panic in my heart, I added: “I am your father. Not that I have the foggiest idea how to be a father.”

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Years later, I took you to an auction where I bought an ugly wooden donkey. I thought I was bidding on a beautiful, handmade rocking horse, but I only realised my mistake when you laughed at me. It was cracked and the pink paint was flaking, but I still have it. It reminds me of my struggle to be a dad.

Sometimes I managed to be a gorgeous rocking horse. But there were times when I felt like an unsightly auction donkey.

“Up to now it was easy,” I told my dad two days after your birth. “But I think the big challenge is still ahead. I don’t know how to be a father.”

I expected him to tell me I’ll have to learn quickly. But he didn’t. My father was a wise old man and sometimes it was impossible to predict what he wanted to say. He looked at me for a long time, and then he spoke: “I also didn’t know when you were born. I still don’t know.”

I think he grappled with his own ugly auction donkeys at times. I did – for almost 29 years now. But it was so worth my while. When I walked you to nursery school one day, I told you that you were perfect.

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“I don’t want you to grow up. Life would be too alone without you.” Then I walked home all alone. You didn’t listen.

On Monday you will become a husband. Which is often the first step to becoming a father. And I think you will be a great one. I wish you all the luck. And all the ugly auction donkeys life can throw at you.