Thanks, Dad, you’re my hero

As a very young boy, I was insanely afraid of the dark.

Every night, I would pull the blankets over my head and lie curled up in a little ball, hiding from the dark. I’d construct a little tunnel for my nose in order not to suffocate and I’d be asleep before my parents turned out the living room light.

Every now and then, however, I would wake up in the middle of the night. Petrified. It was torture. It usually took me about two or three minutes to build up the courage, then I’d dash to my parents’ room and dive into my dad’s arms.

I can’t really recall whether I was more afraid of the monster under the bed, the one in the closet or the one outside by the apricot tree. What I do recall, is that I was even more afraid of my mother cooking lentils.

ALSO READ: What ANC owes in poll promises

Don’t get me wrong, I never saw the lentils as a threat. Not for one moment did I think the lentils would come to life and drag me off to the closet. No, a fate much worse would befall me every time my mother cooked lentils: she would force me to sit at the kitchen table until I had finished the last single lentil.

They were horrible. I hated the taste, the smell, even the look of them. Being a very, very stubborn little boy, I would not budge.

Lentil days thus found me confined to the kitchen table from lunchtime until my father came home from work late afternoon.

Time and time again he would liberate me from my lentil prison. He hated them too. As a grown-up I am no longer afraid of the monsters.

In fact, my children will probably all attest that, like my father, the monsters are now afraid of me. And, like my father,

I don’t put my lips to lentils. In fact, I don’t even allow them entry into the house – lentils or monsters that is. Sunday will be my first Father’s Day without him.

But it’s going to be okay, because of all his tasks, saving me from my biggest fears was his most important. And he performed it with distinction.

Thanks, Dad.