The Weight of a Father’s Hand

"Iná tó bá fẹ́ jó igi, á kọ́kọ́ gbẹ́ ẹ." "The fire that will burn the wood must first dry it." Papa said those words long before life explained them. I remember looking at him, wondering what fire had to do with anything. I was too young to know that elders rarely waste proverbs on the obvious. He wasn't talking about wood. He was talking about people. "You'll meet all kinds," he said. "Some will see something good in you and quietly cheer you on. Keep those ones close." He paused. "But not everyone who notices you will wish you well." I frowned. He smiled, almost as if he had expected the confusion. "One day, someone will meet your kindness and call it pretense." "They'll meet your honesty and still doubt your words." "They'll mistake your silence for pride, your confidence for arrogance, and your boundaries for disrespect." "It won't always be because they've taken the time to know you." "Sometimes, they're simply looking at you through the lens of their own disappointments." I didn't know what to say. Then he reached for a cup of tea. "Do you know why tea never reveals itself in cold water?" I shook my head. "It is the hot water that draws out its fragrance." He dipped the tea bag into the cup and watched the water slowly change colour. "People will become your hot water." "For a while, you'll think they're trying to destroy you." "They'll misunderstand you." "They'll underestimate you." "They'll speak as though they know the corners of your heart." "And you'll be tempted to become smaller. Quieter. Easier to ignore." He looked at me. "Don't." "If the tea bag could escape the hot water, it would also escape the very thing that gives it purpose." Years passed. Then I met the hot water. Not once. Not twice. Enough times to understand that Papa had never been preparing me to win people's approval. He was preparing me not to lose myself because of it. Some people will never see you clearly. Not because there is nothing to see, but because every pair of eyes carries its own history. You cannot control that. What you can control is whether you allow misunderstanding to make you dishonest. Whether criticism makes you bitter. Whether rejection convinces you to hide the parts of yourself that were never meant to be hidden. Papa was right. The hot water never asks the tea for permission. It simply reveals what has been there all along. Maybe that's what difficult people do too.

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