There is one man that has quite attracted my attention recently when I sit on one bench around the swimming pool every Sunday. He usually sits not quite far from where I usually sit, read books or scribble in the cutie notebook while enjoying a cup of Nescafe and waiting for my hair to dry after taking a shower. (FYI, I usually go swimming in the early morning on Sunday.) Some weeks ago, I noticed that there were two boys—around the same age, perhaps around eight till ten years old—coming to him after they swam. Sometimes, those boys came to him, to take something to drink or some snack to munch, and then jumped to the pool again. After the boys finished swimming, they went to the shower room. That man kept sitting on the bench under one big wooden umbrella while waiting for the boys. After some time, I saw them going home together, the two boys and the man. It made me conclude that the two boys were his sons.
My poor eyesight hindered me to take a clear look at him so that I could not guess how old he was. I usually just make myself busy with the books I read or the cutie where I can scribble so that I don’t pay attention to him whether he also took a look at me. My poor eyesight also hindered me to recognize whether he ever put a smile on his face for me so that I think I had better pretend to be ignorant to him. LOL. LOL.
This morning while I was busy scribbling in the cutie, I saw two girls coming to him. One girl is perhaps at her teenage, and the other one is perhaps around three or four years old. Where were the two boys that I usually saw together with him? I was wondering.
I saw the big girl talking to the man, sipping from one bottle given by him. Then she gave the bottle to the little girl. After that I saw the two girls going to the shower room.
After taking a shower, the two girls went back to where the man was sitting. The big girl then was sitting next to him. After some time, the little girl walked around. She went to one swing located on my left side, around 10 meters from me.
I was wondering who they were waiting for?
I was also wondering how the man let the little girl play on the swing without his company. This made me remember the time when Angie was still very little. When we were going sightseeing or going to game center offering many kinds of games for little children, I never let her by herself. From my point of view, I wanted to show her how much I cared for her. Perhaps other people would think that I protected little Angie so much that I could make Angie grow up as a spoiled girl.
Going back to my morning experience in the swimming pool. Every time the little girl passed me from the swing to where her (perhaps) father and big sister were sitting, I felt like I wanted to come to her, to hold her, to carry her in my arms, to kiss her cheeks while at the same time I also wanted to talk to her. But I didn’t do it. Perhaps it would scare her?
Some time passed. My busy scribbling in the cutie made me forget for a while to pay attention to the man and his two daughters.
However, when they passed the bench where I was sitting, I spotted them. There was one boy that I usually saw with that man the other weeks. So the man and his big daughter were waiting for the boy before they went home. Again, when looking at the little girl walking by herself in the middle, I really wanted to come to her, to carry her in my arms.
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By the way, I always like to see a man who is very close to his children. This is to counter what people think that women have bigger responsibilities to take care of the children. With their so-called motherly nature, women are to take care of the children’s upbringing. When a woman is considered not really good to take care of her children, society will easily label her as not a good woman. On the contrary, when the father is busy with his own business/job so that he doesn’t have time to be with his children, society will always understand that because man is believed not to have that motherly nature. The so-called fatherly nature that men are to have is not related to take care of children.
I remember one female student of mine. She is in second grade of senior high. Some weeks ago when discussing ‘friendship’ in class, she told her classmates and me that her best friend was her father. She always comes to her father for anything, not only to ask for money, but also to ask his suggestion to solve her problems, and confide in him as well. “I have no better friend than my father,” she said. That means she was not that close to her mother. It was wonderful, in my opinion.
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