It is not perfect

I walk through the crowd ,wary of my surroundings. I’m in one of the busy train stations in Guangzhou, China my mind busy trying to figure out which exit to take. I have used it before but somehow, i just don’t seem to remember it. Well, I attribute it to the fact oftentimes, I am poor with directions.

While at it, a thought crossed my mind. Am I such a horrible parent for letting my children get sun-scorched during the holiday weeks back? We spent a whole week at the coast of Kenya, Mombasa. In all my plans, I totally forgot to pack sunscreen. As an afterthought, I imagined our skins should be able to handle that. We are Africans, aren’t we? Wrong. The sun burns were visible several weeks after the holiday. I think we looked like we’d just escaped from a coal mine or just survived a spooked explosion. That was the first question we got from the lips of our friends. To imagine it is the second time round it is happening, I think it is now instilled in me to always carry a sunscreen. More so because we rarely plan for our holidays, we just up and go figuring out our bookings on the way or on arrival.

The cries of a six year old startled me from my guilt trip. This girl cried calling out for “Papa”! In the buzz and busyness of the station, no one heard or noticed the little girl, and if it did, it didn’t bother them. I walked to her, held her hand and handed her over to the security man at the nearby desk. She was lost. She had lost her dad. Her dad had lost her. I was still entertaining the thought of how the dad must be feeling when suddenly, a man burst through the crowd calling out a name;the girls name.
She turned and and on seeing him, she yelled papa!! But the dad was so furious, incensed, shouting and pointing at her. She cared less, she was happy to have found her dad. She sprinted towards him for a hearty hug.

I looked at them. Finally caught in that reconciliatory embrace. I thought to myself, we are after all human. Parents but human. Stuff will fall through the cracks but you can be sure we will put our best this and next time to make sure it does not happen. We are imperfect but not impersonal, there’s still so much love in our parenthood treasure trove that we wish to share with our young loved ones endlessly. Do not model perfection when we know because of our human infirmities, we will come through once in a while as flawed, but rather let us endeavour to show our children that failures are learning points and triumphs are points to celebrate.