KAPAI: Children keep alive a father's dream of longevity

Today I sat and watched my daughter sitting in the sun. She was sitting in her favourite seat doing what she calls fun.
At not quite two, (two months short of her second birthday) my daughter likes to read. She will sit in her favourite seat and read and read and read.
The only problem is, and it is no biggy, my little "cheeky girl" doesn't know how to read but she will sit there, hour upon hour, reading to herself and anyone else that might like to listen.
It is with pure joy that we sit and watch her sitting and watching and reading to the world. Sure, she has had a bit of a kick start when it comes to the written word and the odd pukapuka (book) laying around the lounge but for a father growing older by the hour, there is nothing dearer than a daughter to keep the dream of longevity alive.
So I guess for me every day is father's day if it is measured by the amount of joy a daughter brings her dad.
And like all parents who think they have a gifted child, you start making compensations or perhaps making-believe their girl is structuring sentences and making sense when in fact the only person who can understand what they are saying is themselves.
Coupled with this korero of a future Pulitzer Prize winner is what I call the puzzling plurals phenomenon. When our Bubba Girl gets going every word has a whangai or adopted twin like "botbot", "mummum", "kaikai", "nannan", "nyenyes" and "carcar".
Maybe she just thinks I am hard of hearing or maybe its exaggeration for effect genetically inherited from her father who doesn't mind a bit of ``echo echo'' in his own yarns.
But whatever it is, it's contagious and even when she is no where near our conversation, we both find ourselves doubling up like a little two-year-old who believes she can read and that's all that matters.
When I wake up in the morning and discover the almond eyes of my daughter doting on her daddy, it is indeed like the midnight special shining her ever-loving light on me and nothing compares to it.
On another sunny slope, a few clicks up the coast, on the same September spring day, a little precious boy called Wharekawa was saying a sad farewell to his whanau at Rereatukahia Marae in Katikati.
I never knew the little fulla who had struggled with his health all of his life, but someone special to me did so I took the time to stop off and read him a final farewell story.
As I stood by his graveside and shared with him about the world according to Kapai, I could not help but hang my head in silence and in sadness when I thought about the missing piece of magic that his parents must be feeling at that moment.
Sometimes life steers you down a street of sadness to make you walk a mile of thanksgiving and today a little six-year-old, whom I had never met, gave me a gift for father's day that will make us mates forever.
That gift was one of gratitude for the health and the happiness of my little midnight special whose light shines on me every time she smiles, and the golden thread that runs through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, will hopefully over time, weave itself into a korowai of love that will cover her always.
Fathers day, contrary to popular believe was not started by a greeting card company or a sock company or by Brylcream or any other $5 fragrant factory.
And it was not started by the $2 Shop when times are really tough or the Sunday Star Times to sit alongside the Sunday morning breakfast in bed that is served alongside the two sweethearts in your life. Oh no, bro.
It was started by Mrs John Dodd in 1909 who wanted to honour her father William who was widowed when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Mrs Dodd's Dad (almost my daughter's plural slipping in there, I know) brought his six children up on his own with little money and even less help. When she grew up and realised her father's sacrifice, she decided to name a day after him.
And that is the whakapapa (history) of Fathers Day.
A wise man once said the best thing you can spend on your daughter is time, and for a man growing older by the hour, there is nothing better than spending time watching his daughter sitting in the sunsun on her seatseat reading a bookbook to MumMum and DadDad.
And to another strong sister and her little precious two-year-old daughter "Happy Birthday Brie"
Pai marire