From a very tender age up until of late, I used to believe in so many things which I had not put to test yet. I was so positive with life, always believing in everything for the mere beauty of how sincere it looked. Sometimes I would simply believe everything because I was told, not considering the fact that anything emanating from a human being can either be the truth or the opposite of the truth-lies. It always caught me by surprise when I would be brought back into reality with the fact that all I had thought to be true was a mere factor of letting things flow in the right direction to please me-but not a reality of the same.

Not only did I believe everything I heard but I would also believe that there are people in this world who are stronger than others in each and every single way. I believed that they were stronger in all aspect; emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally. I believed that even when shaken, my father was the strongest man in the world. I was little boy by then and I did not know that he also was human and that he had a weakness.

From the time I was a small boy, I viewed my father as being a hero and a legend at the same time. He was big physically, rich and had the power to do anything. To me, there was no one on this earth like him. I feared him because he was a no nonsense man. He did not entertain any form of failure. These are some of the qualities that made him respected and feared by everyone around him. Even my very own mother feared him in a way. I would notice her change of behavior in my father’s presence, for instance, my mum would address us different while my father was present.

There was no mountain that my father could not move and this had built inside me so much so that I started to view him as a point of reference in everything that I did. He did everything perfectly as I thought. My father would not put up with any form of indiscipline neither would he tolerate any form of failure in school work. He viewed failing exams as lack of respect for school work and would reprimand us whenever we failed our exams. I remember once I came second position after doing my examination, he gave me long lectures and even threatened to beat me up for failing. “Dad I came second out of forty two students” I remember saying once. “I will not entertain that kind of nonsense” he always said to me.

One day, one of his companies went through a huge loss. The loss was so huge that it forced the company to take a loan. Unfortunately, the company could not recover but rather started going down slowly experiencing loss after loss and later collapsed. The other three companies followed. With the maturity date of the loan coming up, he decided to close down the company. The bank sent auctioneers who came and sold all the company’s assets to recover their debt. My father became so depressed that his life changed drastically to a person so different from whom I thought he was. He began to drink alcohol from morning to evening he was speaking to no one. He never used to sleep at home but rather came in for meals and left without saying a word. When my mother tried to confront him, he threatened to become violent and she did not bother him again. She even went to the point of getting a psychiatrist to come and try to counsel him but he beat the psychiatrist t to the point that the poor doctor was admitted in hospital due to the injuries.

Now there came this day when I saw what I never thought I would. I was sitting in our living room watching the news when my father came and sat next to me asking me to help him. It was such a disbelief that this could happen. He then broke into tears right in front of my eyes and I then knew he wasn’t the father I thought he was. The man I had adored all my life was sitting next to me in tears asking for my help.

I told him to compose himself and to start all over again. Luckily, he heard me, stopped his drinking habits and after a few months he had borrowed money from his friends and had launched another company and since he had created a name in the industry, he got clients whom he had been servicing in the former company. He was soon back to his own self. I was happy for him but did not view him the way I had done all my life. My belief had been put to the test and it failed. I now understand that, depending on which blogs and magazines one reads, which television programs one watches and who one follows on Facebook, Twitter or any other social site, no one is perfect and no one is better than everyone (The Bridge maker). I now live my life believing what I want to and not swayed by the character of who is saying it or doing it.

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