Essay

“Where are you going daddy?” I seemed to recall when he stepped through the door. Leaving behind a bittersweet reminder as I held the pastry in tiny palms, my world was torn asunder that afternoon. From that moment, the recognitions from childhood to adulthood encompassed my mother. The outcome of my father’s absence was a tightened clutch on my mommy’s sleeve when I was a little girl. Flooding emotions swayed by her gentle words of comfort blossomed into adoration for my mother’s accomplishments and determination in the face of adversity. These reflections shall merit my opinion that women play a greater role in raising children in society than men ever could. The first experience to verify my presumption was the first day of elementary school. Children clung to their father’s as though they were their foundations. My mother’s hand was tender, like she was cradling me in her palm. When she guided me through the door of the classroom, I recall her gentle words of encouragement were very different from the stern unmoving speeches by my classmate’s fathers’. A father’s lesson was spoken like a lieutenant to a trainee soldier. I always despised their methods and saw them as intimidating. Yet, when the moments came of moral and ethics, my mother told me stories and fables. They were scriptures of fantasy and folk-lore that still etched a lesson of life into my thoughts. My best friend would tell me that her father was a “magic man”, who would take her to lost ruins and bring back history in shiny deblumes and arrowheads. His wisdom was passed on to her in pictures and artifacts and in secret, I enjoyed listening to her. Externally, I grew angry and outraged that a father could be anything else than a cold-hearted monster. I was too adolescent to realize that these feelings were only transfixed on one father. The one in particular