Tough Love: Tribute to my father, Alhaji Bello Damagum

I woke up around 4am on the 24th of January to the news of my father’s death. Just a couple of hours before, I had visited him in the Intensive Care Unit where he had complained in his usual manner about being left alone. I tried to explain to him that we could not be […]

I woke up around 4am on the 24th of January to the news of my father’s death. Just a couple of hours before, I had visited him in the Intensive Care Unit where he had complained in his usual manner about being left alone. I tried to explain to him that we could not be by his side because it was an ICU but he appeared not to hear and kept asking for water to quench his thirst. It was painful to watch, so I just rubbed his shoulders and said silent prayers. As a doctor, I knew it was terminal.

One of my earliest memories is of my father sitting with us after every Subh prayer and asking us to recite a portion of the Quran or to do muraja’a (revision). There is only one word that aptly describes the emotion we all felt towards baba, our father, and that was fear. He would sit on the floor with his legs tucked beneath him as if in prayer and strike terror in our hearts just by looking at us. God help you if you didn’t recite the chapter correctly or failed to memorise the du’a he taught you. He insisted we learn to read the Quran fluently and gave us deadlines on when to complete it (Sauka). After he returned from his studies in Sudan, he insisted on speaking to us only in Arabic language thereby forcing us to learn the little Arabic I understand today.

I say fear because it was from him I first understood the concept of ‘tough love’. For a long time, I thought him harsh, strict and downright mean, until I grew older and had kids of my own. I once gathered enough courage to ask him why he was so strict, to which he smiled and told us about his father. He told us horror stories about our grandfather whom we never met, and who he often wondered if he was really his biological father because of how severe he was. I understood then why my father was the way he was – tough love was the only love he knew how to give.

Over the years, people have commented on how similar we are, especially as regards to my ambition and stubborn approach to life. Because of that and so many other things, we often quarrelled especially as I grew older and our values differed. I am therefore grateful that I got the opportunity to make peace at the end. I am grateful for the opportunity to hold him for the first time in many years, to wipe his face and hold his hand; things that people take for granted but what I had never done as a child.

When I was told of his death, I was not surprised. Instead, I felt numb as I got up from the bed and mechanically dressed up and drove to the hospital. I felt nothing as I saw the sad faces of relatives in the hospital and when they wheeled him to the mortuary. I was asked to participate in bathing him according to Islamic tradition. As I pulled back the white bed sheet and watched the man who had struck fear in me for so long looking vulnerable, I felt a sudden wave of emotion. I held his hand and caressed his fingers.

“I forgive you baba, and I hope you forgave me too.”

 It was then the tears came. Loud, racking sobs that shook me so much I did not notice when my uncle came from behind and pulled me away gently.

Most people know of my father’s Islamic identity, his fierce love for charity, fasting and prayer. He had built many mosques in his lifetime and many Islamic schools and foundations. He was a man who often denied his family luxury and instead adopted orphans who he catered for financially. I knew all these before his death, but as I stood in line for his Janazah prayer, in a 500 person capacity mosque that he had helped to build in Kaduna, I could not hold back the tears. Tears of sorrow, shame and intense pride. Sorrow for my loss, for I was now without an umbrella, shame at my foolishness for not understanding him and appreciating him well enough and pride for what he had accomplished in his life time. His whole life was in preparation for the hereafter and everything he did, was for the betterment of his community.

As human, we know that death in inevitable and as Muslims we are taught to surrender to the will of the Almighty. Dear Baba, I am grateful for all the discipline and knowledge you installed in me. I am grateful for the principles and path you paved for us, your children. I am grateful for all those mornings you denied us sleep after Fajr prayer and made us read the Quran until it was time to get ready for school. I am grateful for being with you in your last moments and allowing me to experience your pain. And although I did not realise it till the end, I am grateful for being your daughter.

May Allah SWT help us to follow in your footsteps, and may He in his infinite mercy grant you Jannatul Firdaus, ameen.

Dr Fatima Damagum wrote in from Kano.