I had to go today to pay the electricity bill, which amounted to twice what we had paid in the previous months. Water supply has also halted, house rent renewal is due soon, and over and above all these, four children's school fees are due to be paid. Everything fell due at a time.
If you're a dad, you know how it is when all the bills come at once. You felt a pang in your chest, the moment you got the electricity bill, your water supply got disconnected and your kids' school fees were due for payments. It's a never-ending cycle of one bill prompting another.
As a father of five, with four still in school, I have grown used to the rhythm of the billing cycle, a dance I have never been too fond of. Each step is loaded with losses as your savings feels the pinch on a monthly basis. Every new month brings new choreography, by the time you have perfected your steps, the music is changed.
School fees is the heavyweight champion of all bills. You barely get over the fees for the previous term, and another one lurks behind you and takes a bite. Not to mention the fees at his school, but a whole string of incidental costs, books, uniforms, sports equipment and other "little things" that suddenly add up to not so little figures. Not for one, mark you, but for four children. Both are a huge investment in their future but a large dent in current finances.
One will assume that because utilities have perfect timing, it will not be an issue paying them off. But the case is not so. It's as if everything had a meeting and agreed to come at once. The electricity bill comes, then its sidekick, the water bill. They descend upon you like two unwanted guests at a moment when your budget is already under pressure. You feel like hiding when you hear the voice of a utilities administrator, knowing full well that school fees have only just drained your account.
And to rub salt in the wound, the cable TV subscription decided to expire during the course of an exciting Premier League season. This universe has a sense of humor, I tell you. No father wants to miss those Saturday games, they're usually a small reward for every week's drudgery. And here we are juggling yet another account in this circus that is finance.
It's a strange kind of stress. The kind that keeps you awake at night with numbers continuously churning over and over in your head. You become a kind of mental math magician, constantly calculating in your head like some financial gymnast. Bills, bills, and more bills, they come in like clockwork, testing our endurance and resource management skills.
Sometimes when the quiet hours of the night come and the family finally sleeps, I always wonder how our fathers did it. Did they carry the same load, the same pressures, the same quiet resolve that somehow it would be okay? Or would they too have their anxious moments when the bills stack up faster than the solutions?
And with that responsibility can come something so noble and dignified, to pay the bills, be the stability, bring the comfort, and invest in their children's future. With every bill paid, one brick is laid in the foundation of their futures, one silent testimony of a father's commitment to give them a head start.
Sometimes the pressure gets to you. It's not just financial, it's an emotional burden to know how many people are counting on you to get it right. Whether it's your children's education, your family's comfort, or even the pleasure of being able to watch football together on weekends all depend on keeping those endless bills in order.
Still, we manage. We stretch the budget, we make do, we juggle all of the different plates in the air. Sometimes it means putting off our desires, waiting to buy things we want for ourselves, or finding a creative solution to a budget problem. But we do it because dads do.
Fathers who quietly bear these burdens know that you are not alone in this pursuit. Every bill you pay is a testament to your love, every sacrifice an expression of your affection. Whenever you wake up in the middle of the night going over your account balance or replaying your budget in your mind, remember that there are a legion of other fathers who are doing precisely the same thing.
And so, God indeed helps all good fathers, especially at this time of reckoning, because even if the bills may never end, neither does the determination of a father to do something for the family's sake. So, the striving, one bill at a time, devours the subdued confidence that effort, however unsung, builds something real in one's child, something lasting.
And remember, every bill paid, every deadline met, every crisis avoided is a tiny triumph in the great war that is family. So to all you fathers out there, the silent fighters of the monthly bills, you're doing better than you think.
Posted Using INLEO