I met my father once. I don’t remember when. Mother says I was little when she and I met with him in Gulu. My father served in the Uganda People’s Defense Forces. Growing up, I had been told my father was deceased. My mother was barely physically involved in raising me. Don’t be deceived, though. Mother and I share a solid friendship. I was raised by the fruits that grow on the tree that society is. Mother’s friends and relations always chipped in with the occasional book, pen, shirt and hug. I understood early enough that my mother had another family elsewhere and worked at a primary school where she taught English.
My maternal grandfather, with whom I lived, was the father figure in my life, and I fondly called him father. We watched Arsenal games together and did what fathers and sons do. 14th February 2014, my little safe world came down crumbling. I remember bracing myself for a night out when my mother summoned me. She had only briefly returned to check on us. She forbade me from going out to party because she had something on her mind. I mentally prepared myself for another disciplinary hearing. I was in my senior six holiday then and had been a pretty naughty kid throughout school. Mother started her discourse by citing examples of people known to her who had risen through life without the aid of their fathers. My biggest worry at that point had been how I would be able to afford university tuition. My mother had since quit her teaching job and was engaged in subsistence farming which didn’t rake in much. She carried on with her commentary, which I hoped would lead to my list of offences. No charges were levelled against me that evening. Mother ended her discourse by declaring that: ‘my financial troubles would soon be over because she had decided to contact my father, who supposedly was a wealthy man. She spoke with such belief, candour and confidence about my father. A man I’d all my life, been led to believe, had long died.
It was evident that my grandfather and mother had hidden the whereabouts of my father from me. A lot had been happening in my life that had made Mother believe that she had probably been responsible for my streak of bad luck in keeping me from my father. My mother had met my father in Wandegeya when she was in her senior four holidays. My mother was hosted by an aunt who lived in the same military barracks my father resided. My mother says she turned down my father’s advances because the man hitting on her was in his late 30s. She considered him quite too old for her innocent self. My mother remembers being approached by my father’s military guards, who had instructions to escort her to his home. When she resisted, she was forcefully led to him and locked up in his house for a week.
I was conceived from that encounter.
When Mother conceived, her stepmother and older friends advised her to terminate the pregnancy. She decided against it and brought me forth into the world. I was the unifying bond between Mother and Father. The two didn’t quite relate much beyond occasional meets over my maintenance. Mother refused to marry Father, deciding to return to school instead, where she undertook a teaching course. She cut my father off, severing all ties and communication in a bid to start afresh because he was married.
In 2014, when mother decided to come clean, she barely had any information about a man she had hurled into the past. She thus confessed to me about my parentage without much information about my father. She offered morsels of insignificant information; a single name, his military past and a village in Masindi along the Hoima-Masindi road. The village, familiar to me, had something about it. I had friends in that village who I’d visited in the past. I always had an eerie warm feel about that place every time I travelled that route. I quietly commenced searching for my father without Mother’s knowledge, landing on a couple of dead ends.
I was so angry when a man I was sure was my father turned out not to be. I vented heavily, threatening to leave and not return if Mother didn’t lead me to my father. My mother summoned her people, and they tried to talk to me, but I was too angry to listen. Mother claimed my maternal grandfather had advised her against telling me, and now she saw why. She added she was only trying to ease my struggles. What I found difficult to understand was why Mother had taken her sweet time telling me the truth about my father, especially after my grandfather’s demise. I asked her to keep her stories to herself if she didn’t have concrete information and stormed out. I was uneasy with frustration and what I considered betrayal. A day after the altercation, Mother and her sister set out to find my father in that village in Masindi. The first household mother sought out oddly was my father’s ancestral home. My mother spoke to my paternal grandmother about the man she sought. Mother was devastated to learn that Father had passed on to the other side in 2003. My paternal grandmother told Mother that my father had long passed on and was survived by four children, but the family only had access to three. She added that the last child was lost in the world, and they’d looked for him everywhere to no avail. Mother told my maternal grandmother that she was the mother of that last child. My grandmother lost it at that point, screaming through the neighbourhood about her long lost grandchild being found.
I boarded the next taxi home. My elder brother, who I hadn’t met, was sent to pick me up at the bus terminal. He approached me and exclaimed:
“You f**king look like Dad.”
When my brother mentioned my uncanny resemblance to Father, I felt the heaviness depart. I, deep within me, knew I was finally heading home. I arrived home to fanfare and noise and tents and ululations. My aunts swore I was the reincarnation of Father’s Spirit. My paternal uncle received me, forbidding me from talking to anyone before completing specific rituals. I was dragged away from the commotion into my father’s living room. Pinned on the wall was a framed photo of Father. Silence descended upon the room while I peered into those stern eyes. I, at that moment, lost my composure, broke down and cried. I couldn’t believe I could love someone I’d never met so intensely. I felt the connection. I saw the resemblance. I learnt about my father. I learnt that he had talked fondly about the son he had out there in the wide world. After his father, I learnt that he had named me Bwanswa Zakayo. I learned he had made an effort to find me. I learnt that he had given me his pet name, as is the norm among his people. I was led to his resting place, where I was asked to cast a handful of soil thrice on his grave. I was told Father could now find rest.
I was told my father’s dying wish was to find me. He, on his deathbed, prayed for my family to find me. Father included my name on all his documents. He believed I was alive. He believed I would someday find my way home. I felt accepted in that family. My father’s children embraced me. The party could begin. The last piece of the jigsaw had come home.
Epilogue.
My father oddly met his mother in his 30s. He had left home as a young boy. A caretaker who picked interest in him led him to Lira and, later, Nairobi. Father lost touch with his maternal side only to return home a fully pipped colonel. The fate Father survived struck me fully. I also learnt that he had been a sentimental teacher of literature. I perhaps inherited more than just my father’s facial features.
Mathew Musao, 27, Bweyale.
