The whole point...

I've always had a strange relationship with my dad.

As a child, we were really close. Dad was always the one there cos Mum had to take care of my brother who was rather frail. It was Dad and me, everyday, after school. Of course, I didn't know then that he probably didn't have enough in his wallet for very much. Yet, without fail, he would ask me as he picked me up from kindy, if I had wanted my fave noodles for lunch.

I remember, this one time, when I was in Primary School, I didn't do too well for my mid-terms and I was so afraid to show my report to him. I even went to the extent of forging his signature on it but he caught on. I will never forget the way he smiled and ruffled my head as the teacher spoke to him. And how not an angry word was said afterwards at home in private.

Dad was always the joker, using his strange sense of humour in his effort to diffuse the situation.

I remember when I got my university offers to do my year in the UK. We hardly had enough to go by, yet he said to go and embrace the world. He even went the whole mile by letting me pick the one that was a 2 year programme, saying that the Lord would provide.

I am sitting here, running a fever and yet writing all this down when I should be in bed cos I feel so shitty that I got mad with my Dad this evening and cut him short. I felt bad that I thought, I could never do right in his eyes - have never done so and never will.

I cannot remember a time when I didn't want Dad to be proud of me. I used to think that it was only Mum that favoured my brother. I don't know when I felt I had to prove a point with my Dad as well.

And so it hits me hard and bad when I sit down, think about and realise this. That despite everything I've done wrong in my life, Dad will never think badly of me. In fact, if not anything else, Dad would probably give his life that nothing bad had ever happened to me.

I'm 32 this year. My dad is a year away from 60. For everything he's done for me in the last 32 years, I don't think I need to go give him grief just cos he doesn't say it.

To him, I would always be his lil girl at 10, and he would ruffle my head and say I'm good and did alright.