I Pray My Father Die A Shameful Death, Like Dying on Top of a Woman

I grew up knowing very early that my father was not the kind of man people prayed to marry their daughters to. As a child, I did not have the language for neglect or emotional abuse, but I felt it in my bones. I watched my mother shrink year after year while my father grew louder, prouder, and more entitled. He never paid our school fees. He never brought food home. He would leave the house and disappear for days without a word, leaving my mother to invent explanations for neighbors and relatives. When we needed money for shoes or clothes, he would look us straight in the eye and say, “When I was your age, I walked barefoot. What do you need shoes for?” Meanwhile, he bought new clothes for himself almost every week. Shiny shoes. Well-ironed shirts. A man who looked like a king in public and behaved like a stranger at home. The only time he truly acted like our father was when he beat us. That was his love language.

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As if that was not enough, my father cheated openly and proudly. He fathered two children outside his marriage and brought them into our lives without shame, without apology, and without discussion. We were forced to accept them as our siblings while our own needs were ignored. I remember the anger boiling inside me as a child, the helplessness, the confusion. I went to my mother to complain, to cry, to beg her to fight back. She never did. She would touch my head and say, “Pray you don’t meet his kind, but leave him to me.”

My mother always looked tired. Her clothes were old and faded. Her shoes were worn out. Her face carried a sadness she could not wash away. Meanwhile, my father dressed sharply, smelled good, and moved around town like a free man with no responsibilities. He did not care how we fed or how we survived school. When I was in class six, my school organized an excursion to the airport. It was not a luxury trip. It was educational. I came home excited and told my parents. Around the same time, my elder brother’s BECE registration fees were due. We approached our father with hope, the kind of hope children still have before life beats it out of them. He said he had no money. He said my brother could stop school for all he cared.

That was the day something in my childhood got seared. My mother did not argue with him. She did not shout. She simply held my hand and told me we were going out. I did not understand where we were going or why she brought me along. Maybe she wanted me as cover. Maybe she did not want my father to suspect anything. We went to a man’s house. I still remember the room, the television, the way my mother asked me to sit and watch TV while she went into the next room with that tall and dark-looking man. They were gone for only a few minutes. When she came back, her face was calm but her eyes were distant. The following Monday, my excursion fee was paid. My brother’s exam registration was paid. My father looked at her and said, “So you have money to do all this but expect me to be the one to pay.”

I have replayed that memory more times than I can count. I was a child. Looking back, I know what likely happened in that room. I know what my mother probably had to trade to give us a future. The thought of it still makes my heart boil with rage and grief. How much was that excursion to the airport that my father could not pay? How much was BECE registration? Knowing what my mother may have had to do because of his irresponsibility traumatized me in ways I am still unpacking. That moment planted a hatred for my father that has only grown with time.

Today, my mother lives with me. She is older and tired now. At sixty-two, my father is still out there cheating with women my age. The most painful part is not even his behavior. It is my mother’s response to it. She still goes back to him. She still checks on him. She still sleeps in that house sometimes, only to return to mine in tears because she caught him with another woman young enough to be his daughter. I have begged her to leave him. I have shouted. I have cried, but she never listens. Instead, she looks at me with sad eyes and says, “I pray you don’t marry a man like him.”

Sometimes, I wish my father was dead. I know that sounds terrible, but it is my truth. I wish he would disappear from the face of the earth so my mother would finally be free. I pray he dies a shameful death, maybe die on top of one of the women he cheats with. I am not proud of these thoughts, but they come from years of watching my mother suffer quietly while he lived loudly. My brother has cut him off completely. They do not speak. My father says it is our mother who poisoned us against him. He takes responsibility for nothing. He believes he is the victim. My brother says he will not attend his funeral when he dies. I understand him because I feel the same.

To me, despite all of this, there is something powerful that came out of our story. I learned what I never want to become. I learned what love should not look like. I learned that authority without care is abuse, and that silence can sometimes be louder than shouting. I promised myself when I was young that I would do better in life so I could take good care of my mother. I promised myself that I would build a life where my mother would finally find rest in her final days. I promised myself that my children, if I ever have them, would never fear their father or wonder if school fees would be paid.

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

My story is painful, but it is also a warning and a mirror to me. It is a reminder that children see everything, that the wounds parents inflict do not disappear with time. If there is any motivation in this, it is this: My father failed us, but he did not define us. And even in her suffering, my mother taught me resilience, sacrifice, and the quiet strength of a woman who endured more than she should have had to. This is why my brother and I want to do everything for her now.

—Bridget

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