Dear Editor,
As long as I can remember or rather over many years I have heard many sermons dedicated to fathers on Fathers’ Day, One of the things that was referred to was that Fathers’ Day is not celebrated with as much fanfare as Mothers’ Day even though that does not take away that fathers play a very vital role in the lives of their children.
As the years went by and mainly for economical reasons, more and more men have immigrated and migrated back and forth from country to country leaving their spouses (whether pregnant or not) behind. Many of these men after settling in their new habitat, have not repatriated and in so doing many women were left behind with children who had never known their father. In the same way those who have repatriated also left pregnant women and children behind where they worked. Some have left one island, gone to another island, got the opportunity to go the USA or England and Canada and left women with children behind in both their native island and the island where they were employed.
Because of this phenomenon the sermons on Father’s Day continued to get another twist. Not because of Fathers’ Day and, yes, because of Fathers’ Day I go to church and for years now spend the rest of the day at home just reminiscing of all that I could remember that my father taught me.
I was not 20 years old yet when I officially went on my first patrol. It was during that time my father called me aside and had me sit because he had something to say to me. After giving me what I accepted to be a lecture on being careful not to impregnate any of the flock of girls that would surround me, because of the type of work that I was doing, he continued, “Because if you are not careful, you will become a father. To be a father is one thing, to be a good and responsible father is another thing. And the only way you can say to yourself ‘I am a good father’ is when your teenage children start boasting about you. You have to be the cause of that. You have to make that happen.”
I would like for whoever reads this to give it some thought, not because I wrote it, but because it is a fact. I had a good father. May all fathers have a great fatherhood. All the teachings on how to be a great person are in the bible. And if anyone is reluctant, please know that in my opinion, the bible’s title can also be “The greatest philosophy of life.”
Russell A. Simmons
