Sunday, June 17, 2007
FATHER'S DAY...I have very mixed feelings about this day...I hate the fact that it's been commercialised to such great lengths.Why does it now seem that we only remember to love our dads on this one day and forget to bother about them for the rest of the year?... The sales and specials have made such a mockery of the love for parents especially in Singapore...
But save for this day, I know a group of fathers who are eternally grateful to have the chance to hug their little kids and spend a few hours with them. We did a project with the Prisons yesterday, to celebrate Father's Day. A very heartwarming one...the first-ever father's day celebration in prisons.
Operations aside, it was a heartwarming sight. Children who only got to write letters to their fathers and see them during holidays were given the rare opportunity to hug their fathers and make teddy bears with them and stay in their arms for the rare few hours. I saw one who was trying to get the father's attention. She had two other siblings and was the youngest. And she was like "Daddy, daddy see!" pointing to her little bruise on her knee, she was trying to get his attention and she did. I had a little lump in my throat when i saw that. She was less than 10 and probably pined for such attention.
We learnt from the dad later that his kids and wife were so excited to have been given a chance to celebrate together after many years a Father's Day.The kids kept writing to him to ask if indeed the program was confirmed. I almost shed a tear when i heard that. I can only imagine the misery they go through having to live away from their loved ones. Probably that's the harsher punishment compared to the confinement of the 3 walls and bars by law.
But I also have to salute the women, their wives, who are still willing to give these men a second chance and to raise the kids single-handedly without the father as the head of the family. Anyone knows it's not easy, takes alot of guts. Some had 4 kids, all very young. And some had to continue serving sentences for as long as 4 years. I did a brief calculation and realised one family had lost their father to prisons when the youngest child was only 4 years old and she's now 9 and will still be 'without' a father till she's 13.
I wondered how her mother copes with the raising of the family alone and how she used to have to answer questions like "Where's papa, ma?", "My friends all have fathers, where is mine, Ma?". I felt pity for the children. Did they deserve this? And that caused a strange dilemma, on one hand i was feeling sorry for the fathers who were in prison and on the other, angry at the fathers for not giving a second thought before committing their crime. I know i am being judgemental here but well, i just pity the children and the wives, who have to be 'imprisoned' too by society and have to pay for the crime that was committed.
But I guess this is part of how the world works. No one is perfect and a lesson should be learnt from this. It takes a lot for a family to stick together, and we should learn to appreciate each family member, beyond the commercialised days and never take our family bonds for granted. For sometimes, it gets too late to show the love u have for someone and u regret and pine for such opportunities.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy...I love you!!
Labels: Father, Father's Day, Inmates, Prisons
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