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03 – Dear Max
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Nigerian Diaries Volume II Dear Max,
As I sit here looking at my desktop wallpaper, consisting of a stretched photo of you lying on my boogie board at Torquay beach, I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed you. Everything I promised myself I would not become, I have. I wanted to be a better father than the father I had. I wanted to be there for you, for every moment of your life. I wanted you to have your real father around, and not some substitute. I didn’t want you to have a father that left the country all the time for business purposes, only to return with some expensive toy in vain attempts to win back your love. I didn’t want to end up like all my colleagues – divorced, alcoholic and then remarried to some young girl they met on their travels.
Now as I stare into an almost empty bottle of Wild Turkey, listening to The Prodigy’s “Breathe”, violently coughing up phlegm for the third week in a row; I realise I am all of these things. Instead of playing with you in the park, I am shooting pool and destroying my liver one beer at a time in some whore bar in Lagos. Instead of taking you to the zoo, I am taking my mind to the brink of insanity. Instead of tucking you into bed at night and reading you children’s books, I crawl into bed alone in a small room staring at a ceiling fan. Instead of making you breakfast in the morning (three Weetbix with warm milk and a teaspoon of sugar), I get up and relieve my bowels of yet another bout of diarrhoea.
I don’t really know what to tell you, or how to justify my poor choices in life, but I do know that I miss you terribly. I thought that going back to work would benefit you somehow, in the long run. But now I’m not so sure… I don’t think that no matter how large that bank account has grown to by the time you turn eighteen; it will ever be enough money to replace a father who was never there. I know it wouldn’t have been for me.
I am going to work out this problem, somehow. I just hope I don’t lose you in the time it takes me to find a solution.
Tomorrow I will call you from the office, just to hear your voice. I just wish you knew how much that means to me.
Well it is just about midnight in Melbourne now, so I better say goodnight. Love you.
Robbie, there is nothing to work out.....you know what to do.You said it yourself, the money will be nothing to Max when he is older.You could be piss poor and scrub toilets but he will remember every loving moment he shared with you.Go home, stay home. *Smiles*
Robbie, we all have hard times... you are a great father, believe me...and you know very well he loves you...
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The fact that you wrote this shows how much you care and how much of a great father you are to Max. He knows how much you love him, it's in everything you do. He is lucky to have a father like you.