My Father's Daughter: An Untold Story

By Linda B Akanbi

This story chronicles the on-again, off-again relationship between a woman and her estranged father after she learns the truth. Told with frankness and even with a bit of self-deprecation, the story takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster as the author opens her heart and soul about what she discovers along her journey. The reader will e

• Language: English
• Publisher: ARS Educational Services LLC
• Release date: Feb 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781732580916

Book preview

Prologue

Much has been written in research literature about the impact that fathers have on their daughters’ lives. This impact ranges from how a daughter feels about herself in terms of self-esteem, to choosing men to date and to marry. By the same token, a father’s absence in his daughter’s life can create a psychological and a physical void that is hard to fill, producing a father hunger of epic proportions—even though the daughter may not be fully conscious of it. This book describes my journey–the agony and pain of feeling rejected as I tried to forge a closer relationship with my father, and how we were finally able to bond. I reflect on this journey following his death.

Eulogy for My Father

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I am my father’s oldest daughter, Linda. I did not grow up with my dad. However, as I got to know him later in life and spend quality time with him, I realized that his genes had grown up in me because we shared so many traits: the directness, the assertiveness, the zero tolerance for nonsense, the same authoritarian approach to administration (since we both had worked as administrators), the fierce independence and the inclination to take charge of a situation. Some may argue that these are not necessarily all wonderful qualities. Well, as my dad would often say, For everything, there is a positive and a negative aspect attached to it.

My father believed in planning ahead, no matter how rosy the present might look. When I mentioned to him that I was thinking about retiring in a few years, he asked me what I was planning to do after retirement. When I could not come up with a definite answer, he stressed to me in, no uncertain terms, how critical it was to have a post-retirement plan in place. He said, If you don’t have anything to do after retirement, you might just develop Alzheimer’s and go away. So, even after I became eligible, I was afraid to retire at first because I had not decided on a vocation following retirement. After a couple of years of being eligible, I decided that I would go ahead and retire anyway and focus on international travel and professional consulting in my area of expertise—reading education, and maybe even start my own school, which he thought was highly ambitious given my age.

One of the projects that my father embarked on in his post-retirement years was the building of a personal care home. He said that he was also including a room for himself there to be used in the future. He worked on it day and night. He said that people in the neighborhood would pass by mocking him—just as they did Noah in the Bible when he was building the ark. With a serious look on his face, he asked me if I had thought about my long-term care. I was in my forties then and had not thought about it at all. Years later, however, I purchased a long-term care insurance policy because of his influence.

My father was a sun man. In my first semester as a freshman in college, the professor of my college orientation class approached us (I mean literally getting in our faces and scaring us half to death with his large bulging eyes) during the first week of class and asked in his baritone voice, Are you a moon woman or a sun woman? Are you a moon man or a sun man? Then he explained that the moon has no light of its own; it reflects the light of the sun. The sun makes its own light. So, if you are a moon person, you will try to be around whoever else is popular or has a large following, hoping that some of their light will shine on you. However, if you are a sun person, you make your own light. I decided right away that I was going to be a sun woman. If you knew my dad, you know that he was a man who lived by his own rules. It did not matter to him what anybody else thought about his actions, his opinions, or his way of doing things. If what he was doing made sense to him, he was fine with it. He relied on his own judgment.

My father had his own imprint. On one visit, he took me around to see some of his properties. We happened to go to one of his houses that he was renovating. He pulled out a cabinet drawer in the kitchen and pointed out how he had inlaid it with tile instead of the usual material. He said, I call this giving it the Hill touch. He also pointed out a piece of woodwork that he had carved a design in to place over the living room windows. Like my father, I hope that my work has had its own imprint. As a former college professor, I hope that I have left my imprint on those I prepared to become teachers.

I want to thank you, Dad, for siring me into the world. I am proud to be your offspring. REST in PEACE.

The Viewing

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There lies my father, William R. Hill, in his casket in the mortuary. It is two and a half hours before his funeral services will begin in the chapel located down the hall. His body will lie in state in this room while the memorial service is going on because Dad did not like funerals and had once said that he would not even be at his own if he did not have to. So, my sister, Adrienne, who had been caring for him, decided to honor his wishes.

My daughter, granddaughter and I are alone in the floral wall-papered and elegantly decorated room where the body is lying in state for viewing. Dad is laid out in a burgundy suit, lavender shirt and a purple and lavender argyle print tie. These colors complement his yellow-toned complexion nicely. His silky white hair is neatly combed back from his receding hairline. His white sideburns, beard and mustache are neatly trimmed. He looks so very handsome. He has a slight dent at the top of his forehead. I don’t know why. I wonder if this was something that happened to him during the embalming process.

I can see age spots underneath his thinning hair on top. Well, after all, he was 95 years old. He died exactly one month after his 95th birthday. Dad has a slight smile on his face and looks to be at perfect peace. His eyes are shut tight, but I can see sandy-colored flecks in the lines where his eyelashes meet to cover his eyes. His hands are resting at his sides and his fingernails look freshly manicured. This is really the first time that I have seen my father in a suit and tie although I am the one who insisted on this attire for his funeral. Since he had been retired more years than he had worked, his preferred style of dress was overalls paired with a handyman-type work shirt or a pullover sweater. However, since he had worked for over thirty years as a school administrator, including serving as a high school principal for many years and then rising to become an Associate School Superintendent in charge of federal programs for his school district, I thought it would be most appropriate for him to make his final public appearance in the community where he had lived and served for all those years, in his professional attire.

As I stand there viewing my father’s remains with my daughter and granddaughter, I gently stroke his cheek, touch his forehead, rub his soft silvery hair and sideburns, and run my fingers over his