According to my grandma, I was born in Accra. After six months, my mom told her she was going to visit her uncle in the village. She took me away for that visit in the early 90s but she never returned. I remember somewhere in the early 2000s, a man came to see us. He was with some people. My mother introduced him to me as my dad. He came to the village with his family to come and take me away. My mum never spoke about him so I didn’t even know I had a dad living far away in Accra until that day he came.

When we got to Accra, my father enrolled me in the school he was teaching in. I was there for a long time but my mother never visited me. I would always ask of her from my dad but he didn’t have any answers for me. After a few years, she finally showed up with my younger brother strapped to her back. That was the day I found out I had a brother. After that visit, she disappeared again. Her absence in my life really affected me because I was very fond of her. I was always eager to go and spend holidays and vacations with her but she never allowed it.

I didn’t have any other choice but to redirect my love and affection to my father and his family. When I was in primary school, we would be asked to write essays and I wouldn’t know what to write for my mother’s surname. My dad didn’t know it. And she wasn’t around for me to ask. After several attempts of trying to reach her, she finally came for me one weekend to go and know where she lived. She also introduced me to a few family members from her side. Can you believe she warned me not to visit her? She gave some reasons that were so insignificant that I don’t remember them anymore.

After all this, I couldn’t let myself stay away from her. I continued to seek her attention and her love. Sometimes my persistence paid off. In 2008 for instance, she travelled with me to her village for the Christmas holidays. On our way back to Accra, we went to Akrade and another village, where she introduced me to more of her relatives. I was able to connect with the cousins at Akrade so I took my mother’s number from them.

The first day I called my mother she was angry, “Why have you called me? How did you even get my number?” that was the first thing my mother said to me. I started learning my lesson from that day. My love and interest in her began to slowly wither. Even with that, I still tried. I remember after JHS, I went to visit her. When I got to her place I found out she had moved out. When I asked to know her new place, she refused to show me.

After some time, I travelled to Akrade to visit my relatives over there. During my time there it came up that my mother didn’t know I was with them. They were shocked, “How come your mother doesn’t know where you are? Are you saying you could have gone anywhere and she wouldn’t know?” I explained to them, “She doesn’t know anything about my life at this point. I have tried to make her a part of it but she has gone out of her to ignore me and shut me out on several occasions. She even gets angry when I call her on the phone.”

After my conversation with the cousins, they sent word to her in the village to come and see me. When she came around, she just gave me attitude here and there. It was obvious she showed up because her family asked her to. One evening a misunderstanding happened between us and my mother opened her mouth and told me, “If I had known, I would have drank the concoction your father gave me to abort you.” Those words pierced me like the sharp knives used in a slaughterhouse. I know I did something wrong but for her to speak those words to me, was unfathomable. I couldn’t stand to be around her after that so I left for Accra the next morning.

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Fast forward to when I completed high school. I got myself a job in the informal sector. I was at work one day when she called to tell me, “My pastor said the work you are doing is not good for you. Why don’t you quit and apply to the nursing training college?” When she said that I thought, “You don’t even know the program I read in SHS. You don’t know how I managed to complete school or how I got this job. And now you are telling me to do what your pastor said.” I hung up the call and deleted her number from my phone. Unfortunately, I couldn’t delete it from my head. But that didn’t stop me from living my life as if I don’t have a mother.

As time went on, I learned that things didn’t go well between her and my dad when she was pregnant with me. However, I don’t see why that should make her treat me like I am so unwanted. I am the first and eldest son to both of them though they have a child each with their new partners. All the efforts I used to put into getting close to her, I withdrew it. It was at that point that she wanted to get close to me. Because I didn’t allow it, she no longer knew how to talk to me. She couldn’t even call me on the phone. Everything she wanted to say to me, she said through a third party. It annoyed me when she did that so I told her, “If you can’t call me directly and talk to me then don’t talk to me at all. That one is better than talking to me through someone else.”

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The last time we spoke was in January this year. I have forgiven her, but the seed she planted has grown and is yielding fruits. I am a full-grown man now. I am putting things together to settle down, but my headache is always my mum and her family. Will I invite them to my wedding? What if my in-laws see through us that we are not close? Will they be happy that their child is marrying into a dysfunctional family? My mother’s family and I, our worlds are oceans apart. There is no bond between us. The last time we met as a family was in 2018 at Akrade. The entire time I was there I felt like a total stranger amongst them. I could only remember a few faces. It was a marriage ceremony which was slated for two days, but I spent only half a day there. I just didn’t feel like I belonged with them.

Anytime someone asks about my mother, I tell the person, “I am sure she is alive. I just don’t know where she is at the moment.” I tell this to everybody who asks me about her. It makes things uncomfortable when I say that but it is my truth. I will not say something nice about her for the purpose of a polite conversation. My question today is, what at all in this world would cause a woman or a mother to behave toward their child the way my mother did to me? Please, help a brother.

–Assembly Man

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