I was ten or maybe twelve when our school asked us to write a poem for our fathers on Father’s Day. My teacher, Miss Alison knew my story and knew I didn’t have a father. I ran to her and asked, “Am I part of the assignment?” She looked away. Maybe my question got her emotional and didn’t want me to see her eyes getting watery. “Yes, think of a father and write something to him.”

When I got home, I gave the homework to my mom and asked her to help me. She said, “Write anything that comes to your head.”

Many years later, when I completed college, I saw the poem I wrote that day in my collection of dead items. I wrote;

“Dad is a shadow who follows me everywhere

I don’t see his footprints but he’s there

He loves me and I love him too but I don’t know his face

One day I’ll see him and we’ll hug. He’ll say he loves me because I love him too.”

I laughed when I read it. The poem represented a little bit of my truth but largely, I didn’t know what I was writing about. I didn’t have any experience of a father in my life to know a father was like a shadow. But maybe that statement was true because, like a shadow, my father disappeared when our lives got darker. So I thought.

After college, on a father’s like today is, I asked my mom about the story of my father and why he abandoned us. “He didn’t abandon us,” my mom said. “We abandoned him.”

The story—my story started when my mom was a teenager and suffering the teenage hormones. She fell in love with my dad who himself was a teenager. They were in class together. According to my mom, my grandparents were very strict so they didn’t allow her to go anywhere after school. My father’s parent raised him the way parents raised boys. They allowed him to roam free, have whatever he wanted and be a boy.

Though they were in love, they didn’t have the space and time to explore their love until during their final year of school. They attended evening classes together. After class, my dad would walk my mom home. I could imagine that was the time they had their first kiss. In the dark bend leading to my mom’s house, they stood there for a while, looked into each other’s eyes and kissed.

My mom got pregnant. Not through the kiss obviously but she skipped the part that got her pregnant when telling me the story. The pregnancy threatened the future of my mom and broke the relationship between her and her parents.

They didn’t even bother to look for the man responsible for the pregnancy though my mom named him. My mom was shipped to an aunt in another town. That was where she had me. She left me with my aunt and came back to the city to continue her education as if she didn’t have a child.

All that while, my dad knew about the pregnancy but didn’t know what happened afterwards because my mom disappeared. When my mom returned to the city, she said she showed my dad a photo of me and he shivered and cried. “I’m finished if my parents get to know,” he told my mom. A year later, my mom travelled abroad with her dad. Three years later, I was sent over to my mom to begin life with her. We cut my dad off as if he were a road that led to a dark forgotten place.

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When my mom told me this story, I had a lot of questions to ask her but the only question that came out of my mouth was, “Do you think Dad wants to see me after all these years?” “I don’t know,” mom answered. “He’s a man now. Maybe married with children. I don’t know if he wants to see you.”

That answer got my hopes deflated. If he wanted to, he would have tried. My mom travelled but left her family behind. He could have contacted them to ask about me. People were making calls those days. He could have placed a call to us asking how we were doing. I concluded he didn’t care about us so I pushed him at the back of my mind and moved on with my life.

But I couldn’t move on completely. I thought about him and wondered how he looked like. I thought of my half-siblings and asked how they’d receive me when they learn about my existence.

A father is a DNA. You carry him along the path of life until the end of your days. That’s biological. You are because he is or was. It’s an undeniable fact but the part they play in our lives becomes who we are with them. I felt he didn’t have the opportunity because he was young and I was rushed out of his life so after my university education, I decided to look for him. In 2019, I wanted to come back home to see him but the pandemic happened.

My mom made some calls, asking family back home to look for him. Months later, he got a contact and gave it to me. “That’s your dad’s number, you can call him if you want to.”

I froze when I had the number. I rehearsed what I was going to say, the part of the story I was going to tell him. I slept and dreamt about our encounter but somehow, I preferred seeing him in person to talking to him on the phone. I didn’t call. My mom did the calling. She came to tell me everything they discussed. I asked, “Was he eager to meet me?” She answered, “He said he had been waiting all his life to see you.”

I made the trip to Ghana all alone. I was received by my grandparents. The love they poured on me nearly got me drowned. Luckily, I came with a boat so I floated. They introduced me to humans and ghosts, pets and the air. Just in a day, everyone around knew me. I met cousins who made it their life’s mission to teach me how to pound fufu. I was enjoying every bit of it but my mind was wandering on the thought of meeting my dad the first time.

Days later, I called my dad on the phone. My accent scared him. “Broni ba bɛn nso nono?” He asked. I mentioned my mother’s name before mentioning my name. He went silent. “Tell me I’m dreaming,” he said quietly. “I’m here. Will you see me?”

I ended up spending a whole week with him and his family and it’s the most intense love I’ve ever felt. The first night we didn’t sleep. We sat in the corridor trying to make up for the loss of the decades we spent apart. He told me about my mom and how they used to be in school. The pregnancy and how he was traumatized. He apologized for not being a man enough to face the odds. I put my head on his lap and he stroked my hair, like a father would do for his girl.

I called Mom. I was in tears but she was laughing. She was happy for me. She told me to share all the tears before I returned.

My dad took me to the school he and mom attended. It was in very bad shape just like their love story. He drove while I sat next to him listening to the stories. He didn’t blame anyone. He took all the blame and promised to be there whenever I needed him.

I met my half-siblings too. They called me Obroni. Hours later, I was all over their social media pages. My social media life was nonexistent but these guys came to revive it. I found myself responding to strangers and making new friends with all those who sent friend requests.

When I came back home, I called them every day. My dad was on a speed dial. I would ship things to him, little things but when he got them, he called and thanked me as if I gave him the world. “You know I don’t deserve this, right?” He would ask. “Thank you very much.”

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Last year on Father’s Day, I sent him a picture of the poem I wrote when I was ten or twelve. He said Thank you. I said, “Do you know I wrote this poem when I didn’t know you? I was a girl but somehow, I got it right. I don’t see your footprint but you’ve always been there.”

He sobbed on the phone. I did too. I said, “I love you, dad.” He couldn’t say the response but deep down I knew what he wanted to say. I kept sobbing and the good thing was, these sobs didn’t come from a place of hurt but from a happy place where I knew a father lives.

— Trudy

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