One morning, as I was talking to my daughter about the merits of studying hard and doing well in school, my mother suddenly said to me, “You nearly threw away your life”. Later on that day I reflected on what my mother had said to me and I realised that my life has, is and will always be defined by what happened to my family many years ago. I have carried this burden for years and it has influenced and shaped my life to what it is now.
This is a story that needs to be told as I look at the ruins of broken families all around me and this narrative is especially for all the children and young people who are more often than not caught in the middle when one of the parents wants to leave the family because they are tired of the same old routine and the same old people and want to start a new life with somebody else. I hope that through my story you will know that you are not alone.
I distinctly remember the day my mother’s world came crashing down. She returned home from work one evening, ashen-faced. A Pastor who happened to be a friend of my father’s had visited her office and in the course of their conversation said to my mother, “I heard your husband is staying in _____ now”. It was as if lightning had struck my mother. She managed to say, “Oh, but he still comes home every night.” At that moment, my mother knew the truth about my father’s frequent nightly disappearances and most importantly, she knew where and whom he was spending his nights with.
My father was a teacher in a school and there was a student he was particularly taken up with. He resigned from his job when he became a full-time politician and to contribute to the family finances, he began working as a contractor on the side. Both activities provided him with the perfect cover for his adulterous activities. He would blame his late nights and frequent nocturnal absences from his family to emergencies at the construction site or to a political crisis involving his party. My mother had her doubts since my father was a ladies-man but he managed to assuage her suspicions every time.
The ball dropped the day the Pastor informed my mother about my father’s new abode. Like most nights, my father was very late getting home that particular evening. My mother, confused, heart-broken and desperate for the truth, bundled me up in warm clothing and with our maid for company since it was late at night, the three of us walked a very long way to the house where my father’s mistress lived. Sure enough, my father’s jeep was parked on the road opposite her gate. We climbed inside the jeep and sat there waiting for my father to come out of the house. I fell asleep during the long wait and when I woke up my father was driving the jeep home.
All hell broke loose when we reached home. I went to bed not fully understanding the significance of what had just happened. When I woke up in the morning I found my parents sitting in the living room and my mother looking drained and haggard. They’d been up the whole night talking. I’ve often tried to imagine to myself how my parents felt and what they talked about on that long and difficult night. I couldn’t look or speak to my father. My world fell apart that morning and little did I know then that my world would continue to disintegrate until there was nothing left.
My father refused to leave his mistress nor did he want to leave my mother. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too so he carried on his affair clandestinely. My mother crumbled to pieces. She had a demanding job which required her to travel frequently. My father started blaming my mother’s travels for his infidelity. It was on one such occasion when my mother had to travel that I discovered my father dead drunk in the middle of the night, sleeping with our maid. I woke him up. He didn’t know what to say. The next morning my father called me to him and warned me not to tell my mother about what I had seen. I remember looking at him with contempt in my eyes. In the kitchen, the maid narrated to me how she woke up when she felt my father on top of her blankets. Scared, she kept completely still hoping he would leave until I entered the room which was a few minutes later.
Being a single child, I was showered with love and affection. My love for my parents was such that I could not bear to spend even a single night away from them. I especially enjoyed being with my father since he had very little time for me. He was hardly ever at home and when he was at home he was almost always surrounded by people. The only time of day when I had his attention was in the morning while he was still lying and relaxing in bed before the arrival of the unending streams of visitors. That also used to be the time when he would do my maths homework. But he was my father and I loved him. When he discarded me like one would do an old, unwanted dress or coat, that’s when my love turned to loathing.
An incident which will remain with me forever happened when my father sent his nephews to pick up his clothes from our house. The sight of those two young men emptying the wardrobe of my father’s clothes and stuffing his personal belongings into an airbag will haunt me till the end of my days. I remember taking a piece of paper and a pencil and writing a letter to my father. I remember wishing ill on him, his mistress and their unborn children. I was only 10 years old.
To say that that period was a living hell is an understatement. The day my father finally left my mother and I to fend for ourselves is a blur to me now. I vaguely remember arriving home from school one day and being told by my mother that my father has left us. That was the day my childhood ended.
I struggled for years to come to terms with the fact that my father’s love for me was as insubstantial as a soap bubble. His death left only an empty hollow in my heart and I did not attend his funeral even though his family remembered my existence with his passing. My father’s abandonment shaped my life and influenced all of my decisions, both good and bad. It made me feel worthless, unloved and unwanted even though I had my mother’s unconditional love. I struggled to understand how lust can overpower a child’s innocent love, how somebody can just casually abandon a child they’ve loved and cared for since birth, for another person. But this is a hard fact about our society. Almost every family has an abandoned and fatherless child or children. Growing up fatherless made me feel like I was lesser than everybody else.
I almost destroyed my life through my actions because I felt nobody cared. It took a lot of love, patience and understanding from my mother and plenty of determination on my part to straighten my life and turn it around. The one thing I cannot deny is the constant presence of God in my life that has made me what I am today.
For all the abandoned children out there, life does not come to an end when a beloved parent leaves. It will still go on and though the heartache will never go away yet we must persevere and make something of ourselves despite the disadvantages. We must never define ourselves by what was done to us but rather by that which we accomplish for ourselves no matter how small or big.
(Contributed by Emily K.)