Today is my father’s birthday. And Oprah Winfrey’s birthday, too. I just had to put it out there.
Lieutenant Colonel Franco Ogwang is not your ordinary father and much less your ordinary man. You see, he is a man and two women combined. He raised his children on his own. Literally. In every sense of the word. Preparing us for school in the morning, cooking, cleaning, washing, everything. Every single day until we were able to do these things ourselves. And no, he is not a day at home father. He did this while working his job as a soldier and airforce pilot.
Up to this day, my father cooks and cleans except that we have largely relieve him of these duties. He still makes polite requests when he wishes that someone would help him wash his clothes; otherwise he does not mind doing his laundry himself. My father is the kind of man who will wake up in the morning and make breakfast for every one or put beans on fire for lunch, just because he got up earlier and nothing more. We have never had discussion about what boys can or cannot do or what girls can or cannot do. To this day brother and I share housework and it is even awkward talking about it because this is just normal.
As school going children, I do not remember a day my father never showed up for any school event. Right from nursery school, he showed up for every speech day, visitation day and all the celebration of all the sacraments. On the rare occasions when he did not come for visitation, he sent someone. Either way, he always had his hands all over the visit.
Back then in our early primary school when we could not afford better schools, my father made it his job to teach my brother and I how to read, write and count. He always ensured that we did our homework and sat with us through it to actually do it.
Meanwhile he is a pilot, a lawyer, an administrator and a Tutor at a military college.
When you have been raised by a man like my father, things like Stingy Men’s Association are not even funny.
If you never hear me argue about what a man or a woman should or should not do, this is the reason. I live in an alternate reality.
Happy Birthday, Baba. Thank you for making the woman I am. It has been a fight. I’m not easy, I know. I’m impressed that you actually managed to make something out of me. Other people are still trying to figure me out, but I don’t blame them. I guess it takes a man like you, to raise a girl like me.
Kind regards,
Anna Grace
