My dad died last week. May God grant him peaceful rest. Before his passing, we were not on talking terms, we were like sworn enemies. He did something that hurt me deeply, so deeply that I allowed the pain to consume me. People say that no matter how angry or hurt you are, you should never take things too far with your parents. But I did. I stopped answering his calls. I ignored him. Again and again. Until ignoring him became normal.

My mother died in 2016, leaving behind a three-month-old baby. Everyone came around, cuddled us for some weeks before her funeral, after the funeral, I was dispatched to live with a strange aunty in the Ashanti Region. Strange because she wasn’t even a relative.

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My brother too was dispatched to live somewhere else with a strange aunty. And my little sister, who was three months old at the time, was taken in by a distant aunty. She has been the one taking care of her since she was just three months old. My aunt is in her sixties. An old woman who should be resting, enjoying peace and living for herself. But for nine good years, she has been carrying a responsibility that has no business being hers.

My father didn’t contribute a dime. Not once. Not sometimes, but nothing.

When I was in secondary school for three years, he didn’t take charge of my responsibilities. The only money he ever sent was in 2017, GHC 100, when I gained admission. That was all. That was all I got from him.

It took God’s grace and miracle for me to complete senior high school. My junior brother finished school just last year. And for three whole years, my father didn’t contribute a single pesewa. I don’t know if he ever sent him something without my knowledge. I paid for his bags, his books, his provisions, and gave him money on a regular basis.

All this while, I was supporting my little sister too. I don’t have the world, but when they called me complaining about not having a good meal to eat, or not having a shoe, it pained me to imagine what my dead mother would be doing in her grave.

I don’t have anything valuable for myself. I’ve never rested since my mother passed away. I don’t even look like my age anymore. I had a dream, but six years are gone, and they don’t look like they are coming to fruition anytime soon. Everything I earn goes to them. I don’t even remember the last time I did something for myself. Besides all this, I was sending money to my father. He works too, but I don’t even know what he does with his money. When he asks me for money and I don’t have it, he gets angry.

The reason I was not on talking terms with him was simple, but enough to break the camel’s back. My youngest sister had just one week left to resume school, and we had to get her provisions ready for the new term. I was broke to stupor at this point, so I called our father to tell him. “Please, I need help this time. I can’t do this alone.” He said he didn’t have money.

When my youngest sister’s guardian called him for help again, he promised that he was going to try to get his hands on something. He stopped picking our calls for the days that followed. He didn’t look like he was going to show up, so I dug the ground to help her resume school.

His own friend called to tell me he had sold a land belonging to the family. He pocketed all the money without a care in the world for us, his three children.

Just weeks after that incident, he called me asking for money. I asked him, “Daa, I have heard you’ve sold the land. Where is the money from the land? Has it finished?” He asked me who I was to ask him that kind of question and hung up on me. That was the second to the last time we spoke.

I only heard later that he said he had disowned me, so he forbade people from mentioning my name in his presence. “I ask my daughter for money and she doesn’t send it to me.”

The very last time we spoke, he called with an unknown number, requesting that I bring back the mattress he bought for me when I was in Junior High School, or else he would curse me.

He even sent a text message. It’s still on my phone. I refused to pick up any calls from him later on. The latest news I heard was his demise. On his phone, I came across a voice note he was trying to send to me, a week before he died. It was still about me bringing him back his mattress, or else I’d hear from him. Exactly a week from the day he was trying to pass on that message to me, he passed.

After listening to that voice note, my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t that clear, but it felt like someone who was struggling to speak. If only I had received that message, I would have called him to ask if he was feeling well, because his voice sounded like someone who was battling with some health complications. To ask him, “Have you eaten? Should I come and prepare light soup for you?” I would have been more forgiving.

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

We are to celebrate his one-week passing very soon. A woman called me to tell me that before I even make any decision to bury my father or celebrate his one week, I should make sure to do the necessary things to make peace with him before I bury him.

Since hearing that, I haven’t been myself. How do you make peace with someone who has died? How do you ask forgiveness from someone you can no longer sit across from? What is my next step?

—Mirabel

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