A father's timeless love.

On her 16th birthday, Ms Bailey Sellers, the youngest of four siblings, noticed something wrong with her father. It was the Christmas of 2012 and he slept through for most of his favourite day of the year. 

Bailey's father was later diagnosed to have stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He was 55 years old at that time.

After that devastating news, Bailey dropped out of high school, and took care of her father full time. When the load became too heavy, her mother too stayed home to take care of him. 

However, a year later, Michael Sellers passed away when Bailey was only 16 (turning 17 that year). But that was not the end of their father-daughter's bond.

A few months after her father's passing, on Bailey's 17th birthday, she received a special gift. It's from her father. It's his posthumous love gift for her, that is, it came in a bouquet of flower and a note that reads:-

"Happy birthday. You'll receive these until you're 21. Love, Dad."

Apparently, Michael had before his demise set up an arrangement with a flower delivery service to send his daughter a bouquet and a note every birthday until she is 21.

Sharing about these loving annual deliveries, Bailey said: "Everyone knows I hate my birthday. I don't want to celebrate it. It's just a reminder he's not there anymore. And at the same time, I can't wait because I get those flowers."

The truth is that Bailey didn't want her 21st birthday to come because, as promised, that will be her father's last love gift to her. 

But when it came last Friday, which was two days before her 21st birthday, she "brought the flowers inside and couldn't make it through a sentence of the note before she lost it." 

It reports that "while the previous years' flowers usually had short greetings, this time a handwritten note with butterfly stickers was attached. Her mother read the rest of the letter, with the whole family crying."

Here is what Bailey's father wrote:-

"This is my last love letter to you until we meet again. I do not want you to shed another tear for me my baby girl for I am in a better place. You are and will always be the most precious jewel I was given. It is your 21st birthday and I want you to always respect your momma and stay true to yourself. Be happy and live life to the fullest. I will still be with you through every milestone, just look around and there I will be. I love you Boo Boo and Happy Birthday!!! Daddy."

Lesson? Erm...full disclosure? 

I actually cried this morning when I read that letter. Being a father of three, with two young daughters, I shed silent tears. 

They said grown, adult men don't cry. I somehow believe that. 

You see, if you protect your heart from the hurts of love, wrap it up airtight from the wounds of devotion, and lock it away somewhere where the pain of fatherly sacrifice cannot touch it, you have no reason to shed any tears. Your heart is well insulated.

But alas. a father's heart is not that fortunate to be so protected, wrapped up and locked away. 

Every morning, the privilege of being a father is that you get to see the sleeping, peaceful faces of your children. 

You get to be there for all their milestones in life. You get to share their disappointments, growth, tears and joys, and they yours. 

At the end of the day, you get to watch them sleep with that same reassuring peace they started with in the morning under your care, nurture and love. 

The relationship between a father and his child cuts deep into the father's heart. In fact, they are so connected by a spiritual bond that one's pain is felt a thousand times by another. For fathers, you dread the day you walk her down the aisle and give her away. 

So, I know viscerally and intimately where Michael is coming from and how his heart must have ached so much penning those words to Bailey, and also every greeting card he wrote to her until his baby's 21st birthday. 

I feel that Michael's message from a place of eternal rest is so applicable to me. It is so heartwarming for me. 

It speaks about a love that never dies. It lives on with such undying devotion. It is eternal. This father's heart will go on for a lifetime even if Michael is not around for all of Bailey's birthdays. 

It is the same message I want my daughters (and son) to know. 

I would want her to respect her mother cos she is the first love of my life, and a love that transformed me for good. My heart would never be strong and resilient without hers beating in mine. 

And I would also want my daughter to stay true to herself. Don't pretend to be what you are not my dearest. You don't need to prove to others or get their approval. 

I want my daughter to know that she is always my angel, the precious jewel God has given, and I will always love her because this love cannot be shaken by circumstances external to us. 

In fact, the circumstances, however intimidating, are there as building blocks to strengthen our love even more, and not break or threaten the bond.

And I wish that she will always be happy and live life to the fullest. 

In this world, it takes so little to be happy. We tend to forget that. We run around empty looking for it when the truth is that happiness has never left us. 

It is in fact in the touch of another, the sweet words of encouragement, the embrace of passion, the joy of a walk together on an ordinary day, and the growth we build up through overcoming in hope, faith and love.

Mind you, not one of those things I have written about require any herculean effort on a father's part to achieve, or at all. He doesn't need to build up his career or cash balances for most of his lifetime to buy them. They are free, priceless and forever. They are readily expressible.

In other words, they are simple acts, deeply felt, and quietly transforming. They are eternal too. 

In any event, what is a lifetime to a father anyway. It may just come sooner than he could ever wish against. 

Lastly, of all the above, my daughter needs to know this: "I will still be with you through every milestone, just look around and there I will be."

Indeed, fathers have never left. We are always there. The memories we form with our child can never be extinguished. A father's love stays with his children for their lifetime. It watches over them and his heart still aches when their hearts ache, and leaps for joy when theirs leap.

But whatever happens, the greatest gift of fatherhood is that we hold our baby's heart in our hands when we first carry them in our arms. 

From thereon, our hearts are already intertwined, joined as one. It's unbreakable, inseparable. And it is an overcoming love that lasts forever. Cheerz.

Everybody, Somebody, Nobody.

When Prince Harry went on his knee to propose to Meghan Markle with a yellow gold ring just after a roast chicken dinner at Kensington Palace, she did not wait for her Prince to finish the sentence before she said yes to him. 

She thought the occasion to be "so sweet and natural and very romantic." 

On the ring, she said: "he designed it, it's incredible. Yeah, make sure it stays on that finger."

What was the Prince's response? 

He said he was "over the moon, jumping up and down."

But I am not so much writing about that this morning, or how they met, or what is their favourite colour. I am going off tangent here to write about the views of the world, or more appropriately, the world's judgment. 

You see, not everyone is celebrating though. One part of the world is not. Here is why. 

Meghan is born in LA, not home ground U.K. She is older than him; that breaks the tradition. What's worse is that she's biracial. FYI, Meghan has an African-American mother and a white father. That's unprecedented?

And the one that takes the cake is that Meghan is a divorcee. 

Now putting Prince Charles' dalliance with Camilla aside, the world is not happy that she is not only not pure breed, pure pedigree, and pure blood, but she was once betrothed to another man. 

That I guess permanently marred the image of a fairy-tale princess for the world. 

Then, here's another news. 

Oxford, the English city once home to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has removed her Freedom of the City Award for her "inaction" in the face of oppression of the Rohingya. 

This is what the city council said in a statement:-

"When Aung San Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of the City in 1997, it was because she reflected Oxford's values of tolerance and internationalism. Today, we have taken the unprecedented step of stripping her of the city's highest honour because of her inaction in the face of the oppression of the minority Rohingya population."

It should be noted that Oxford also removed portraits of Suu Kyi from its wall in September. 

FYI, her husband, Michael Aris, was a lecturer in Oxford and the couple lived and raised their two sons in the city.

Lesson? Just one.

There is a certain cold resoluteness in the way the world judges you. If you are a nobody, nobody cares. And because you are a nobody, you are a nobody to them. 

Everybody is looking for somebody and obviously, nobody is just not somebody.

Curiously, everybody adores a somebody because somehow a somebody makes everybody somebody. It's called living your life vicariously through that somebody. 

There is another truth here about nobody, everybody and somebody.

At the risk of sounding trite, everybody exists in the majority. They are the faceless crowd, the hidden stats, the background protest, the masses clamouring for blood, and the ringside spectators expecting a good show for their money's worth. 

They will not settle for less. 

In other words, everybody expects somebody to make everybody feel that they are somebody deep inside. 

There is of course a positive side to that. We all draw our inspiration from our personal heroes or role models. It is our springboard to achieve greater things for ourselves and possibly becoming an inspiration to others. 

But there is also an insidious dark side. It is also a very volatile side. 

Unfortunately, this volatile dark side also explains why somebody has to fit the expectations of everybody for it is trite to say that somebody is somebody because he or she meets the high standards set by everybody. 

So this brings me to Prince Harry who is clearly a somebody in the eyes of everybody. And this also brings me to Meghan, who is, well, a nobody by the standards of everybody. 

What's worse is that this nobody is going to marry the somebody and she doesn't even fit the basic expectation of everybody. 

She is of a different country, different pedigree, different status and different class. Mind you, she is...the "D" word. 

Here you can forget about what MLK once said about judging people not by their colour or creed, but the content of their character. 

And this also brings me to Suu Kyi, the once freedom fighter for everybody. She has been denounced by everybody because of her "inaction". 

Before, she was handsdown somebody. But now, she is a handsoff nobody. Because she has fallen short of the standards set by everybody, she is no longer everybody's somebody. 

(I caveat that this post is not to dissect what Suu Kyi did or didn't do. She has her own demons to fight with, just as everyone has their own. It is nevertheless about the volatility, or even futility, of being in everybody's good books).

So, there you have it, my lesson for the day. 

It's about everybody wanting to be somebody because nobody is just not that somebody everybody wants to be. 

But here's the last truth about nobody, everybody and somebody as I end. 

The reality of it all is that everybody is just not somebody however much everybody wishes they are. 

You see, they can wish that they are somebody but it will not happen as long as they remain as everybody. 

As everybody, they will never understand the struggles, the pain, the loneliness, the regrets, the fallibility, the mistakes, the shame, the determination, and the undying hope of somebody. 

As everybody, they will never understand the sacrifices somebody makes, the blood, toil and sweat they expend to get to where they are, and the disappointment in somebody's life. 

And as everybody, they will never understand the truth that it was not the choice of somebody to become somebody. They just do what they love with passion and perseverance, and they are not looking for fame, fortune or recognition in their struggles to be what everybody wants them to be, that is, somebody. 

If given a choice, I sincerely believe that that somebody rather remain as nobody because they know deep inside that they can never meet up to the standards of everybody, and they never desired to in the first place. 

As a nobody's somebody, somebody enjoys full rest, assurance, peace, mutual understanding, and the joy of just being yourself. 

For somebody also know that they are only human, and they are bound to make mistakes. What distinguishes them however is that they never give up. 

However, as everybody's somebody, somebody will seldom find rest, approval and understanding for they will be judged endlessly by everybody for everything they do and say.

Now, the scary thing here is that in the end, what everybody so desperately wants to be, that is, somebody, is in fact no more than everybody trying desperately to deny what they truly are inside, that is, a nobody. 

So, the sad reality is that everybody is made up of countless nobodies who don't have the courage to step out of being everybody, but instead take cowardice comfort in numbers so that they can avoid the struggles and sacrifices that a nobody takes to become somebody in his or her own rights. Cheerz.