We grew up in Nigeria. That was where my parents met each other and started life together. But my father fell off the radar one day. Another woman caught his eyes, and he married her. Days before they got married, the house was filled, family popping in and out preparing for it. I thought it was just a celebration for my father. I didn’t know it was my daddy marrying another woman.

It wasn’t an ideal arrangement, not at all, seeing the situation we were in. But as children, we moved with the flow.

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My father marrying another woman meant a lot of changes were happening in our home. Mom was left with the burden of taking care of us. My father, on the other hand, focused his attention on his new family. It was a battle of the toughest. If we asked our father for bread, he took days before he gave it to us. By then we may already be needing new books for school. He didn’t mind us. My mom said it was better she suffered in her own country, gave us a better education, watched us become better men to bury her when she dies. So we packed our lives, our memories, into boxes. Ghana Must Go. We took the next bus travelling to Ghana one evening, never to return to Nigeria again.

My father was still there in Nigeria, with his wife. They had five children. Years later, life has taken the two families down completely different paths.

By God’s grace, my step siblings have done very well. Two are already settled in the United States, and the others have also secured their visas and are in the process of relocating there. They have even relocated their mother, and from what I understand, they sold the family house in Nigeria before leaving.

Today, my father is 70 years old and is now back in Ghana.

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Thankfully, he isn’t sick or bedridden. He is actually quite healthy and still strong for his age. The problem isn’t his health. It is that he has virtually nothing to survive on. No meaningful income, no property in Ghana, no financial cushion.

When he arrived in Ghana, I made sure he got safely to his family house because I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave him stranded. But even before that, he had called me from the bus station. I had to send money for him to settle his transport fare.

His relocation to Ghana has left everything concerning him to us. The same children he left uncared for. On my side, life isn’t exactly comfortable. By God’s grace, my younger brother is doing well financially. However, he has made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with our father. His reasoning is simple. Our father wasn’t there when we needed him, so he doesn’t believe he owes him anything now. There are only two of us. If he doesn’t do it, it falls on me.

I understand why he feels that way. As for me, I’m a civil servant. Anyone familiar with civil service salaries in Ghana knows they barely stretch far enough. My brother and I have been doing everything we can to care for our mother, especially her healthcare. We even started building a house for her, but it is on standstill for now till we get proper funding to continue.

This makes me wonder what life would have been if only my father didn’t go off the radar. Surely, life would have been better. Or maybe not. When he was in Lagos, he could call for money and I would surely send my small token. But his relocating to Ghana has tripled my responsibilities.

If I had more than enough, I wouldn’t think twice. But I’m already trying to support the woman who sacrificed everything to raise us, keep my own life together, and finish the house we’ve been building for her.

How do you give what you don’t have? On some days, I want to change my number so that he doesn’t have access to me anymore. But then this guilt creeps up on me. This man is still your father, regardless. One of my step siblings in the U.S. reached out to me after my father arrived in Ghana, but I made a conscious decision not to ask him for money. I just felt that if they wanted to support their father, they shouldn’t have to be reminded or persuaded by me. Why things have gotten to this point, I honestly don’t know.

I don’t hate him. I’m just tired. Financially, emotionally, and mentally, this situation feels like it has pushed me backwards. If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

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Would you continue supporting him because he is your father, regardless of the past? Or do you go asking his other children to send their contribution in taking care of their father? I mean, it appears they are in a better position than I am. How do I do this?

—Ben

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