When I was very young, my dad got angry anytime I asked for money for school or to pay for anything. It wasn’t only me he did that to. He did it to my siblings and even my mom. If you heard my dad screaming in the house and getting angry with everyone, then it meant someone had gone to ask him for money for something.
In the morning, I would dress up and get ready for school, but I would linger around for a while because I was scared to walk up to my dad and tell him I was ready so he should give me my pocket money. He would scream, “If you’re ready, go err. What do you want from me?”
If I mentioned that I needed my pocket money, he would insult me, call me a lazy girl and even ask the importance of my existence in the house. After ranting and ranting for minutes, he would throw the money at me and walk away.
I didn’t attend any excursion in school because I was scared to ask my dad to give me money to go and pay. I nearly didn’t write BECE because I was scared to tell my dad how much the exam registration was. I told my mom first. She asked me to tell my dad. When I insisted she should tell him, she told me she wasn’t my spokesperson. A day before the last day of registration, my mom asked me in front of my dad, “Have you told your dad about the registration fee?”
I shook my head. My dad asked how much, and I told him. After ranting and ranting, he told me he was going to give me the money the following week, and I told him the next day was the last day of registration. I’m alive today because my mom stopped my dad from beating me to a pulp. The next day, he paid after telling me I should stop school and become a seamstress.
He continued doing this even when I was at the university. Today, I’m the one taking care of him basically because my other siblings are not yet in the position to send him money consistently. He would call me and then go like, “Send me something wai, your father, I’m broke.”
Then everything that happened in my childhood would come back to me. I don’t complain or shout or say anything, but I don’t send the money until he has asked at least three times. I can send him money monthly. In fact, he has asked me to send him a monthly allowance so he would stop asking for money, but I don’t do it. I wait until he asks and then promise to send and not send until he has asked several times.
One day, he got angry. He screamed, “This is what I hate about you. Tell me if you won’t give me the money. You will promise to send and still not send.”
I haven’t forgiven him, though I want to. Sometimes he feels too proud to ask, so he would go like three months without asking, maybe waiting to see if I would send without him asking. I won’t do that. I enjoy seeing him go through exactly what he made me go through while I was young. Yes, it wasn’t easy to get money in his time. It’s the same in my time. I’m not ranting, but he’ll have to beg to get it from me.
How can I let this go, especially when he’s now the only surviving parent of mine?
—Janice
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