How I got this grey hair

On the morning of July 7, while shaving, I spotted a grey hair on my chin. It was thin, almost invisible, but it stopped me. I didn’t see age — not because I’m thirty-something and Black — I saw time. I saw sleepless nights, mornings that began before dawn, and the slow, patient wearing down that comes from loving three small humans with everything I have. Parenthood doesn’t announce itself all at once; it accumulates quietly, until one morning you look in the mirror and realize it’s been keeping count.

This fall, my wife left for training on Prince Edward Island. I stayed in Hamilton with our three girls — Libin, four; Ladnan, two and a half; and Iftin, five months old — and two cats, Simba and Viola. Simba’s the family man: steady, loyal, always in the middle of things. Viola’s the opposite — quiet, elusive, showing up only when the world settles down again.

A Somali man talking about cats instead of camels — that’s odd, right? They’re not mine; they belong to my daughters. To be honest, I don’t like them that much. I kind of like Simba — sometimes. Not all the time, if that makes sense. I agree with Dhoodaan [Somali poet] —Bisaduhu tuugsi kama gaboobaan — cats never grow old enough to stop begging.

I’ve been there from the start: the first diaper, the first bath, the first braid, the first step, the first huweeya huwaa [Somali Lullaby song]. But there’s a difference between being present and being alone. When you’re the only adult in the house, the weight shifts. There’s no one to tag in, no one to trade a sigh with. Every cry, every spill, every decision — it all lands on you.

In my life, there are many things I’ve been unsure about, but becoming a father was never one of them.

In Somali culture, men aren’t often seen doing the day-to-day parenting — the lunches, the hair braids, the bedtime stories. When I talk to the few male friends I have, they sound like I’m performing a magic trick. There’s always that line — “anigu ma samayn kari lahayn” — I couldn’t do that. I get it. Many of us were raised watching our mothers carry everything while our fathers stood slightly apart.

When Libin was born, I wrote her a letter, and in that letter, I made a promise: that I would be there for her. I meant it. In my life, there are many things I’ve been unsure about, but becoming a father was never one of them. I’ve seen too many mothers in our community carry that weight alone for years, and too many fathers disappear when the real work begins. I think about them often — how easy it is to leave, and how hard it is to stay.

Most mornings begin the same way: a cry from the baby, then a voice down the hall — “Daddy, there’s a monster in the hallway! Come get me!” I lie there for one more second before someone climbs onto my chest, giggling, demanding breakfast. By seven, I’ve warmed a bottle, flipped pancakes, and lost the argument over which bowl is “not yucky.”

I used to think patience was a skill, something you could measure, practice, improve. I know now it’s quieter than that.

Libin, my oldest — she’s me, just smaller, hungrier, and with no beard. She’s a picky eater and likes to be alone. She decides which plate everyone gets, even though she still needs help cutting her pancakes. She’s careful and bossy in the same breath, my little diplomat.

Ladnan keeps me honest. She asks questions no one should have to answer before coffee. “Is Mommy your husband?” “Where does the sun go?” “Do you know my favourite colour?” By the third question, I’m done for, a grown man outmatched by a child who still can’t pronounce tomorrow. I used to think patience was a skill, something you could measure, practice, improve. I know now it’s quieter than that. Sometimes patience is just choosing not to speak. It’s the space between no and okay.

By midday, the hours blur — feeding, cleaning, chasing, folding, repeating. There’s always one moment when the house goes quiet and, for a second, I think maybe we’ve reached peace. It never lasts. The silence is usually a trap or a warning.

I find Ladnan under the table, legs striped in pink marker. “I’m making myself a tiger,” she says, proud and serious. The smell of ink reminds me of my first year of school. I want to be angry, but she looks so sure of herself, so alive in her imagination, that I just breathe in and out and say, “Okay. Just don’t draw the face.” Some days I act like she just landed on Mars, and honestly, I think I could win an award for acting.

Sometimes, when I hold the baby against my chest, she studies my face like she’s memorizing it. At this age, they look at things with surprised eyes. I always wonder what they see. Her breathing slows, her hand rests on my shirt, and for a few minutes everything stops. No noise, no chaos — just the soft rhythm of another life. That’s what saves me, I think: the small, ordinary moments that don’t look like much but hold everything together.

Evenings stretch like the long days of the pandemic years — dinner, baths, the slow unraveling toward bedtime. Lately, the baby has changed her sleep routine. She wakes up at 1:14 every night, and you’re wondering how I know the exact time. Trust me, I know. If you’re a parent tracking every diaper change and bottle, you check the clock every time those cries start. She doesn’t go back to sleep. I sit there until almost three, rocking her on my knees. My neck burns, my back tightens, and my knees sound like an old Fiat engine running without oil.

The next day starts the same. The baby cries, Libin argues, and I move through it like someone trying to finish a song that keeps changing key, like Hadrawi’s Balet weyn. Libin says she doesn’t want to be little anymore and insists on putting on her own pajamas. Ladnan still wants to be carried everywhere because, in her mind, she’s my favourite person in the world. That’s why she keeps asking, “I’m your best friend, right, Daddy?” Iftin is different — light sleeper, old soul. She stares at people like she’s trying to figure out what kind of world she’s joined. Sometimes she laughs in her sleep, and I take that as a good sign.

Parenting isn’t built on big lessons. It’s built on repetition and repair.

After reading the last Dr. Seuss book — the pen name of American author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel — I stand by the door, hand on the frame, watching the light from the hallway spill across their faces. They look like peace. But I know better. They’re the reason I’m still learning what peace means.

When the house finally goes still, I sit at the kitchen table and let the quiet in. This is the part I hate. It’s not comfortable. The fridge hums. The clock ticks. Somewhere in the next room, Simba meows — begging again. The quiet makes space for memory: the times I lost my temper, the moments I gave in too easily, the seconds I didn’t stop to listen. Parenting isn’t built on big lessons. It’s built on repetition and repair. You fail a little, you learn a little, you try again tomorrow. That’s the name of the game, if you can call it one at all.

People talk about grey hair as proof of stress or age or maybe a vitamin deficiency. I think it’s proof of staying — of showing up when you’re exhausted. Standing in the cold beside the car door because your daughter says, “I can do it. I can buckle myself,” and waiting while she tries, because you want her to know she can. You stand there, watching her wrestle the buckle, every second stretching longer, until she finally clicks it and looks up with that proud, shining face. “I did it, Daddy?” And you cheer like she just landed on Mars and Jupiter at the same time.

That’s where the grey comes from — not the frustration, but the love you hold steady through it. The patience that grows even as the body tires. Lately, I think that’s the quiet work of care: to keep showing up when no one’s watching, to build something lasting out of ordinary days.

I’m still here. The girls are asleep. Simba’s watching the fridge like something sacred might appear. Viola’s vanished again. The house hums with that low, living quiet that only comes after a long day. I rub my chin and feel that same rough strand. It’s not a mark of age. It’s a trace of a life being lived — one day, one diaper change, one bedtime story at a time.