I spend a lot of my time thinking about my family. I’m the type of person who’s constantly worrying about familial deaths and wellness, crying over father-daughter commercials, and rubbing up on my entire family like a cat. Sometimes, I’ll even just walk up to them and strike up a conversation about nothing for five minutes, just so I can do it again and again, day after day.Â
Out of my entire family, I’m absolutely closest to my dad. Since I was a baby, I would follow him around no matter where he went, wearing his shoes and invading his space (all things I still do at my big age). Our bond allowed me to understand a lot about my dad, including the sacrifices he made so that my brother and I could have the best life possible. This includes the knowledge he was forced to gain from the trials he faced while growing up, which he later bestowed on us.
My dad grew up in Jamaica. We would joke from time to time that he “grew up in a bush,” though the way he describes his childhood makes that comparison feel a bit accurate. He would sell fruit to be able to afford school and learned how to do his sisters’ hair (which is a big help when I’m too tired for wash day). As a single mother, my grandmother worked very hard to put her kids through school and make sure they were fed, and my dad was someone who wanted to assist in any way. He was able to get my grandmother her first fridge and helped put members of my maternal family into school as well.
When he came to Canada, my father described living on the west end of Windsor. He would take buses and ride bikes, even in the winter, to get to work, school, and back home. He suffered frostbite from washing cars for people who were looking more to take advantage of the “naive immigrant,” rather than providing guidance. Eventually, my brother was born, meaning my father had to choose between his degree and work. Work won.
In 2004, my father was able to purchase his first-ever home, a cute, pink, 2-storey house, the same home I was brought to following my birth later that year. He finished the basement; lights, flooring, paint, the whole nine yards. My father also grew the garden out front, and there are many photos of me trailing behind him while he enjoyed the fruits of his labour. Though things were heading up, we were still on the cusp of poverty, something I am lucky to not have realized until my adult years.
My father’s experiences helped to shape me into the person I am today. He did not have a savings account, so I do. He could not afford school, so he made sure I could. He gave up school, so he made sure I would value knowledge. He taught me computer literacy, showed up to my events, and still wakes up at 4 am if I have food poisoning. He is soft-spoken and incredibly intelligent; my dad is the only person I know who can do massive calculations off the top of his head.Â
Many may read this as an example of an immigrant who “pulled himself up by the bootstraps,” but this is not that kind of story. My father’s experiences help to shape my understanding of my dual degrees, and I am able to recognize that there is no “pulling yourself up.” There is hard work, but there is also getting beaten down again and again. In “pulling yourself up,” you sacrifice so much of your wants for the betterment of your descendants. My father would even tell me that at many points, he could only attribute his success to luck. This is not to demean his extraordinary efforts, but to understand that not everyone would be able to get where he got. There is a constant suffering hidden behind “pulling yourself up” that is ignored in the face of accomplishments. For every good thing, for every success, the most important thing is to appreciate the factors behind it. Understanding that you worked hard and it paid off, and you also got a little lucky. Lucky that nobody else bid higher on a house, lucky that nobody else submitted a stronger essay, lucky that the question you guessed on ended up being correct. Luck is as much of a part of success as hard work, but luck will rarely exist without it.
This is one of many lessons I was honoured to learn from my father. I am so very grateful to be able to have a family member I can learn so much from. I am extremely proud of my dad, though there is one accomplishment that I am both proud of (and afraid of driving). In 2024, my father bought his first new car, one that was so new, it was a 2025 edition, something completely unheard of before due to the budget constraints of my childhood (imagine paying for a literal track star and a daughter who does literally any sport/club on a whim). By 2030, I hope to get him a plot of land so he can finally grow some sugarcane on the farm I always tease him about owning.
I love my dad a lot, and he is the person I find myself most grateful for every day.