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What is a Father? A Father is someone that takes control, and guides his child (whether it be boy or girl) down the right path of righteousness. There are no perfect people on this earth. Only one person walked this earth that was perfect, and that was our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But what a Father wants to do is get as close to perfection as he can while guiding his children. Now how do we do that? First things first, we as Fathers need to fix ourselves. We as Fathers need to walk in the path of righteousness. See, our children mimic everything that we say and/or do. Our children are like sponges, they absorb everything. Let me tell you a quick story.

I saw my Father do a lot of things that I thought was cool. My Father would have different people come up to him and give him money no matter where we were. It seemed that everywhere my Father and I would end up, people would be happy to see him and they would come up to him and have a very small conversation. I would eventually see them put money in my Father’s hand and walk off happy. As a child being maybe seven or eight, I would wonder why are we at a gas station while my Father is pumping gas, and a random person would pull up at a different pump, and get out of their car and walk over to my Father and hand him money, and it seemed that they were very happy to give it to him. I said to myself, that’s how I want to be, and in my mind, it was the perfect way to be. I would watch how women would respond to his actions and his way of doing things. Everyone loved my Father, especially women. So I wanted to investigate to find out what my Father did to have so many people love him, and especially how to make people love to give you their money. I found out in a short time that my Father was a drug dealer. So at a young age I wanted to become a drug dealer. I figured that I needed that love that my Father was receiving from random people. Eventually I did it I became a drug dealer. I hit the streets very hard, and I must say, in the beginning I was doing fine, and then something happened. I gained a scar that I would wear for the rest of my life. There is no hiding it; it could be seen from yards and yards away. It’s my amputation. I’m a double amputee, meaning both of my legs are gone because I tried to mimic my Father’s behavior.

When I eventually had my first Son, I would never forget. He was about two years old. I use to wear a hooded sweatshirt all the time. Now my Son has never seen me walk a day in his life, but one morning, my girlfriend at that time and I was lying in the bed, and my Son got up and put on one of my hooded sweatshirts, and he put on my girlfriend’s Timberland boots, and he put the hood over his head. He started walking around the house moving his head like me, holding his hands like me, and to be honest, he was walking the same way I used to walk when I had legs. He was saying, “I’m my Daddy. Hey ya’ll, I’m my Daddy”. It scared me. Although my Son had never seen me walk before, that’s how he imagined I would be walking and dressed if I had legs.

I realized at that point, I had to change my ways immediately. I wanted to become the Father that I wanted my Son to mimic.This message is not just for the Fathers that helped parent a child, this message is for all the men that has someone that can look up to him. You could be a Father figure to your nephew, your cousin, your friend’s Son. You could be a Father figure to any child and not even know it. So be careful, because you are being watched. I want to leave you with this, anyone could be a Daddy, but it takes a Man, to take the initiative to move in the right direction towards becoming a better Father and/or Father figure.

That’s my daughter on the left now.