A tribute to father's day.

Credit by: Father’s Day Gifts Pakistan

Father's Day can be a creation of Hallmark cards to sell your merchandise in times of calm, but it is a beautiful reminder that we should appreciate our parents and tell them that we love them, something we usually forget. For a country that celebrates births, weddings and birthdays, we do not celebrate relationships and our loved ones as we should.

When we recognize people in our lives, we tend to celebrate some relationships more than others. Heaven is at the mothers' feet, but parents, who usually finance our lives and provide immense support at all times, are left out when we express love, gratitude and appreciation. This father's day, I wanted to take some time to recognize the parents and tell them how wonderful they have been over the years. This is something that all parents would love to hear from their children, no matter what their age or relationship.

My relationship with my father has been like that of any other child. It began with me, worshiping everything I did, of indifference to rebellion without cause in my adolescence. Later, I developed an appreciation for my father that many people get as their parents grow up. Abba, on the other hand, has always loved me, warts and all, and was proud of everything I did.

I look a lot like my father, at least that's what friends, family and strangers have told me. Now I smile and I accept it, but as a little girl I would be enraged when they told me that I look like my dad. My argument was simple: I am a girl who braids her hair, my dad is a man with a hairline that retracts. We cannot look the same. Instead of hurting himself, my father was proud of the fact that his daughter could argue so well.

As a child, I had a huge map of the world the size of a wall in my room, and my father and I spent hours in front of that map talking about countries, food, geography and wars. One thing we always argued while standing in front of that map was to travel. We planned a million and a trip for later and my three favorite destinations were coffee plantations in Colombia, Cairo and Venice. Those trips together never materialized because her health deteriorated after the sudden and untimely death of my mother. But he was very happy when I traveled to these places (I still have to discover the Colombian coffee plantations) and he made memories for both of us.

Before I discovered the Internet, my father was my Google, encyclopedia and Wikipedia, all in one. If I wanted to know about the Stockholm syndrome, the Crimean wars or Isaac Newton, my father was my person to turn to and he never disappointed me. Abba introduced me to Mumtaz Mufti, Ghalib, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov and instilled love for the written word in me. It is possible that he has inherited something more than my father's facial features because my passion for travel, my love for books, my pragmatism and my attitude of not saying or dying come from him.

Although Abba has never been very demonstrative about love and affection, and I always thought that she cared for her children in a very casual way, now I know that we have always been the center of her life. I only realized how much he loved me when I went to college abroad. He never told me how much he would miss me, but he cried for hours after I left and even as a result I had an eye infection. When I found out, I called Abba and told him I would go back if he wanted me to do it. He told me to stay and finish my career and joked that while the Prophet Yahoo lost his sight while crying for his lost son Yousef, he only had conjunctivitis.

It was only after this that I remembered all those incidents of silent fatherly pride that took everything I did, whether it was the results of my high school, my athletic achievements or my work. I remember him shining with pleasure when they published me for the first time. He called everyone when he was not around to make sure the world knew about his daughter's achievements.

I lost my mother when I was a teenager and I never had the chance to tell her how much I loved her and what it meant to me. My father is not well these days. He is hospitalized and fights against poor health and weakness. On this father's day, I want him to know that he is very loved and appreciated. Everything I am today is for my father, for his affection, compassion and guidance. He always encouraged me in the course of action I took, and he never stopped me from doing anything because I'm a girl. Perhaps his greatest gift is that he never put barriers to my imagination flight. I love you, Abba, and I want to thank you for enriching my life and being such a wonderful father.