My father used to smoke a lot. He would come home in the evening, stand on the porch in his baggy trousers and light his cigarette. He’ll smoke all evening and keep to himself. You’ll see him going around his car. He’ll touch the tires and press them, checking the level of inflation. He’ll open the bonnet and go through whatever it is that he goes through. The next thing I will hear is, “Atta, bring me water.” I will fetch water in a big bowl and send it to him. I will stand next to him as he fills his tank. I always wanted to leave because of the scent of the cigaret. I had been told in school how harmful it was and how it can turn our lungs upside down and kill us. 

Sometimes he’ll allow me to leave immediately after he finishes filling his tank. Sometimes he’ll keep me longer as he tells me one or two things about cars. I remember him telling me once, “Do you know how I came to own this car? I can’t tell you everything. You’re young so you won’t understand but I want you to know this, it’s only a successful man who can own a car like this. If you live your life well, you can own a bigger and better one. That’s why you don’t have to joke with your education.” 

From all indications, that car meant a lot to him. It was his pride. He would wake up at dawn and throw a torchlight on it because he heard a sound while he was asleep. When he came home with a fault, he’ll go under the car while I hold the torchlight for him. He’ll spend all evening under the car, find the fault and resolve it before we leave. It was an old van. Judging from the noise it made while driving, it had seen its best days but dad treated it as something new. He was the only trotro driver who had a wastebasket in his car because he couldn’t stand passengers littering his car. And if you did and he caught you, he’ll give you a piece of his mind. He might not pick you the next time you come to the station.

While dad was all about smoking and his car, mom was the reserved type. Her words were few until she was rebuking us. When we did something wrong and she got angry, she could talk all day until my dad would scream, “Sophia is ok. Save some of the insults for tomorrow. I know these two. They’ll do it again. Don’t waste all your energy on them today.” True to his words, we’ll do it again and mom will spark. We were annoying—me and my sister but my parents never laid a hand on us. Dad would rather smoke in his baggy trousers than touch me or my sister. Mom would rather sing songs of lamentation than touch us. Maybe it was the reason we kept fooling around.

I came from school one afternoon and met dad in the house. Trotro drivers don’t come home early like that so I was wondering what was wrong. He screamed, “Hurry up. Put your bag down and change into something else. We are going to the hospital.” Before I could say jack, he was in his car honking to tell me that I was wasting time. I got in the car and asked, “Who is in the hospital?” He didn’t answer me. He was pensive and driving as if he wasn’t driving. He picked up a cigarette and gave me the lighter. He said, “Light it for me.” I pressed down the wheel and the flame came up.  He turned his face toward me with the cigaret in his mouth and I sent the flame to it. Soon he was huffing away.

He sat silently until we got to the hospital. Mom was in a hospital bed with a mask covering her face. The nurse took my father to the side and told him something I didn’t hear. I was looking at my mom and wondering what happened to her. Dad came to stand next to me and we both watched her in silence. He said, “Your mom is in a critical condition. We have to pray for her to get well.” I kept asking, “What happened to her? She was well this morning when she was going to the market so what happened? Was she knocked down by a car? Did the sky fall on her? What happened to mom?” Dad answered, “She fell sick and she was brought here.” 

What I was seeing wasn’t a sickness. It looked like death.

This is what happened. Mom was busy selling in the market and according to an eyewitness, they saw her going down slowly until she fell flat on the ground. She started foaming all of a sudden so she was rushed to the hospital. One of the women ran to look for my father and told him. Mom spent over a month in the hospital. My grandma came to look after her at the hospital while we visited after school. When she was discharged, she couldn’t walk again. She couldn’t even sit without support. They brought her home and from that point on everything changed in our lives. 

Dad left home at dawn and came in the afternoon to see his wife and then went to work again. Life got hard but dad always told us to pray for our mom. All of a sudden, there was no money in the house. Everything dad made went into healthcare. Mom wasn’t getting better but she was better at consuming all the resources in the house. I went to school often without pocket money. Grandma will cook for us and we’ll take it to school. When we return from school, we’ll eat the same food we took to school in the morning. Most evenings we didn’t eat. 

Then one evening, I saw my dad on the porch sitting quietly with his cheek in his palm. Then it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I saw him smoking. He wasn’t saying anything but staring into the blank sky. The next morning was a Saturday. He spent all day under his car but the car didn’t work. For over a month, he went to the station without his car. We came back from school one day and his car was gone. He said, “I had to sell it. I don’t have the money to get it back on the road.” 

His pride was gone. The signature of his success was sold for a song because he had spent all he earned on our mom’s healthcare. From a proud car owner to a bookman.

It’s amazing how fast life can change. We didn’t have it all but we had three square meals every day. At that point, it was hard to know where our next meal was going to come from. Dad worked as a bookman and saved money for our school fees, and mom’s drugs and left what we would eat in the hands of God. Our fees were always paid in full. Even when I was in SSS, I was never sent home for fees but I never went to school with pocket money. Dad said, “I’ve paid fees. That means you’ll eat in school. You don’t need pocket money.”  From the first year until I completed school, I had no pocket money. I shared books with friends because I couldn’t afford to buy them. I begged for extra food from friends.

Mom was still in bed when I completed SSS. My grandma had left then so it was my sister and dad who took care of mom while I was in school. My sister was in JSS. She would bathe my mom and dress her up because she was the woman. Dad would sit at the head side of the bed, put mom’s head on his lap, give her drugs and feed her. If I had a camera in those days, those were the moments I would have captured. My dad’s patience and my mom’s helplessness. She lost her speech so she only communicated with us through sign language. She grew lean and brittle as if any little shake would break her into pieces. Dad didn’t give up on her. He worked to get her drugs. Whenever he heard of a new place where they could help, he took her there.

My sister went to SSS in 2004. I stayed home until she completed in 2007 before I went to the university. That was the only way dad could afford to pay our fees. I was doing my matriculation when I saw my father’s phone call. I picked it up and it was my sister. I asked, “Where’s dad that you’re using his phone?” She answered, “He’s too broken to talk. Mom died last night.” I couldn’t cry. I went back into the auditorium to continue with the ceremony. After everything, I took a car home. My dad saw me and he came to hug me as if he needed me to stand on his feet. It lasted so long that it got me thinking. Then I realized it was the first time I was hugging my dad. I held on firmly. He was crying. I was doing everything not to cry. He said, “She finally got the rest she deserves.” I answered, “That’s why I can’t bring myself to cry.”

Dad was fifty-four years when mom died. Life became a little bit easier. My sister found a job as a pupils’ teacher. Dad continued being a bookman. My sister sent me money. Her salary was that small but she saved so she could help me go to school. When I completed university, my sister also went. I supported her with my national service allowance. I later got a job and took up all the responsibility so dad could rest on what he earned.

We are now adults, living on our own. My sister is married to a Kenyan lawyer and they both live in Tanzania. They have three amazing kids. I’m married with three kids of my own. The boys have the name of my father. The girl has my mother’s name. Our dad lives with someone who helps around. We are trying to make his life as comfortable as we can. We’ve advised him to get a wife. We were trying to get him a companion so his end of life wouldn’t be lonely. He said, “I don’t want the spirit of your mom to feel like she is replaceable. And at this age, if I marry someone else, it would mean she would have to take care of me. I’ve done that before and I didn’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t like to put someone’s daughter through the same thing.”

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I visited him recently. We were talking about life when mom was alive. I said, “I don’t remember when you stopped smoking. When did you stop?” He laughed. He answered, “Honestly I don’t also remember. It occurred to me that I hadn’t smoked in a very long while but I couldn’t go back to it because of your mom’s health.”

I went out with friends that day and spent all night at the bar drinking. Around 11 pm he called me. He asked, “Are you coming home to sleep or you’ll sleep outside?” I responded, “You don’t have to wait for me. I may not come now.” He asked, “You’re drinking, right? Where are you?” 

The next minute he was at the bar. He said, “I’m sitting here. When you’re ready to leave, let me know. I will drive you home. You can’t kill yourself. You’re all I have now.” 

I gave him the keys and sat next to him. He was struggling to turn the engine on. Everything looked new to him. He asked, “How do you drive this thing?” I answered, “It’s a little bit different but everything else is the same.” I turned it on for him and put it on drive. As he drove off, it was my childhood all over again, sitting next to him in his van as he drives off with a cigaret in his mouth. I said, “What’s left is the cigaret and we’ll be in the 90s all over again.” He answered, “Life…” And then he smiled this awkward smile that made me feel like he was missing something—something that only has a name in his heart.

—Atta

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