HUNDREDS OF STUDENTS at St Leonard’s Boys’ School know Dr Victor Agard as “Sir”.
But when this teacher leaves the classroom and heads home, uppermost in his mind is that there are three grandchildren there eagerly waiting for “dad”.
The indefatigable educator has been father to Kareem, 16, Remelia, ten, and Zakiya, 15, “from the time they were born” and he muses: “I don’t know if I ever became a grandfather. I was always daddy.”
Agard’s grandchildren used to live with their mother, his daughter Nkwa, and he would visit them from time to time, always giving support to the three children who called him “dad” back then.
That role assumed different proportions, however, when the children lost Nkwa five years ago. He immediately moved in with them permanently and took full responsibility for their care and upbringing in the absence of their biological father, who also died recently.
Therefore when Kareem, Remelia and Zakiya call him dad now, it is because that is how they really see their grandfather.
Zakiya reflects: “Usually, when he came we would just call him dad because we grew up hearing my mummy call him dad, so we continued calling him dad.
“We only realised that he was our grandfather when she [their mother] told us, because he would come here most of the time and stay with us . . . .
“Our dad, he was not really here for us. That’s how we really knew our grandad because he would come and help our mummy . . . . So we were close but not as close as we are right now.”
The bond between him and his grands has grown even stronger as he works at bringing them up to be responsible individuals, just like he did for Nkwa, whom he was forced to raise after his wife and her mother died.
With a sense of déjà vu, Agard has stepped into his late daughter’s shoes, heading her household as mother and father, just as he had been forced to do for her when she was ten years old.
He told the SUNDAY SUN that throughout his life his plate had been full with fatherhood – first with his daughter and now with her children.
“I guess from the time their mother was delivered I was daddy and mummy . . . ,”he said.
Agard’s wife died when their Nkwa was just ten years old and he had to raise her with some support from his mother, brothers and sisters. But he had the belief that “you are never on your own. You always have God in front”.
As he settles down in a chair in is home, youngest child Remelia climbs on to his lap, curls up in the comfort of his arms, and eventually falls asleep. She is not feeling well on this particular evening and, showing the typical concern of any parent, he immediately enquires from the other two children whether their sister’s medication has been administered.
This evening he is visibly tired, having made it home from school just after 7 p.m. There is evidence of the strain of Agard’s daily juggling act, caring for two teenagers and a pre-adolescent at home while coping with his job as teacher, educating and helping to mould the lives of other people’s children. He also lectures part-time at the Barbados Community College, as he puts it, “teaching teachers how to teach”.
But he does not complain. He does not believe he should.
The question is asked: “How do you cope with all the studying, the teaching load and taking care of three children?”
He turns his head, looks to the ceiling, takes a deep breath and, smiling, replies: “I don’t know because I know I don’t sleep; I know I am always tired; but things have to be done and they will be done.”
He continues: “The experience of being a teacher is helpful but when you come home you still have that problem of dealing with your own children because they are close to you. When you deal with other people’s children, you try your best with them. But when you have your own children and you know they can do better, you end up shouting, ‘You can do this!’
“When you give an instruction and they start telling you, ‘But . . .’ you have to stop and curb yourself because the same way you curb yourself with other people’s children, you have to curb yourself with your own.”
The soft-spoken man confesses to sometimes raising his voice as he tries to cope as a father this second time around.
“Previous to that (becoming father to the three children) I never had to say much because with their mum we communicated without my having to say much, or my having to shout or anything. But these are different children.”
And his teenaged daughter Zakiya admits: “It is difficult at times, but it can be fun at times because we have our moments. He is strict but he knows when to be strict because sometimes we get away with a lot of things.
There is a time and place for everything for him. When he is around we know that we have to behave a certain way.”
Agard wants to raise responsible children capable of taking care of themselves: “For me the immediate thing is to try to instill in them discipline. I want them to be respectful. I want them to do their best. They are three talented children.
“I know that Kareem is the most famous of the three because he is bold and he astonishes people with his voice, despite such a small body; all three of them sing.”
Kareem, the eldest, is the Alexandra School student who stunned NIFCA audiences with his powerful voice. His sister Zakiya rivals her brother with the quality of hers.
A violin enthusiast, she has earned Grade 3 with the instrument and is currently rehearsing with the National Youth Orchestra.
They both are part of the worship leaders’ team at the Ebenezer Revival Centre in Whitehall, St Michael, which is near their home.
They are fully involved in youth activities because their father believes the religious and moral education provided in the church is important to their development.
“Going to church is to help them to recognise that you can’t get anywhere without God. I am always pleased about the fact that my mother took all of us [to church] even when you did not want to go. I like that upbringing and they are having that upbringing.
“They have to recognise that you cannot get through without that spiritual help. I would like them to be able to take care of themselves in terms of being able to live but also being kind and respectful to other people so that they can stand with their heads held high.”
However he cautions: “They go to church, but don’t think that shields them from the things that bombard them on the street, on television, even the cartoons they like to watch; even the Internet, that is a big danger. I can’t watch them all the time. I want to give them the opportunity, but can you trust them? I don’t know which parent can trust their child.”
Agard speaks proudly about the three children’s special talents and boasts about how good they all are in the kitchen. As he does so, Remelia awakes in his arms and, catching this part of the conversation, cups her father’s face in her small hands and whispers: “Me too.”
He responds: “Yes, you are good too.”
Kareem takes a more mature approach to being raised by his grandfather and though he readily admits occasional tension because of the strict discipline to which he is subjected, he gives his grandfather credit for the positive influence on his life.
“When my mum died, I personally did not know what was happening at the time. When she died and then he came into my life it was like, ‘Okay, I know now that she has died and I now have to live with somebody who I knew from the beginning.’
“When I first entered Alexandra he suggested that I join cadets because he finished cadets as a warrant officer.
I was like, ‘Cadets? Daddy, this includes push-ups when you behave bad,’ and he said, ‘That is not the point.’
“But now that I am a corporal in the corps I realise it is about the discipline and that is what he led me into.”
Corporal punishment is administered in this home. But in the same way his charges at St Leonard’s Boys’ come back to “Sir” to give him a “knock” (a friendly gesture of hitting fists together) minutes after receiving a flogging from this teacher, Agard’s children are back for their dad’s caress after getting the occasional lash.
He has had to deal with the female problems of his older daughter becoming a woman and has taken it in stride, not being afraid to turn to female friends at church and other “aunties” like Auntie Maxine, a volunteer guardian and friend to the children, for advice.
“I am an artist, I sing, I write music and poetry, I used to dance . . . . I do sculpture, any area of the arts I am in,” says Agard.
The artistic genes were clearly inherited by his late daughter and her children.
Kareem hopes to go far with his voice and is currently awaiting a response to his application to study at the Barbados Community College, while Zakiya aspires to be a forensic scientist. Her late mother was a pharmacist.
All he is doing for his second spring of children is not going unnoticed and is the reason Kareem is determined “to be the best I can to please my dad”.
It is a role Agard has taken on because “I just know it is something that I have to do”.
