Fatherless

 

I remember when I was 5 years old in pre- school we lived in Arnot with my father and our nanny. my mother would drive to come see us on  the weekends, off days or when she was on leave. All I remember is that Bonolo and I were not happy about not having mama around, my father either worked night shifts or was just never around so we basically lived with our nanny Mamsi. She was a darling who loved to eat soil, so every week she would carry my sister on her back and I would have to carry my 5 year old legs and trail behind her trying to catch up to her pace. She really loved us, treated us like her own and tried to fill the void of missing our mother.

 The problem about leaving in Arnot was my father! I could never really understand that man. I remember coming back home from school excited about a school trip to Zoo, i showed my father the  newsletter and it read that the trip was R5 per child meaning that he had to pay R10 for both Bonolo and I. I couldn’t count money yet, but I knew that the small amounts where in coins and the big amounts where notes. So my father gave me R5 to pay for the trip, and I remember asking him twice if he was sure that the money was enough and he nodded. Next day I get to school I ask all my classmates before class if they have money for the trip and to my delight Bonolo and I were going to be amongst the first people to pay. We get into class and after taking the register our teacher asks “who has money to pay for the trip?” I raise my hand and walk to the front to pay , I tell her that I am paying for both Bonolo, and I to my surprise she tells me that the money is  only enough for me and that Bonolo  still had pay. I slowly turnaround with my heart on the floor and walked to my desk leaving blood stains as I mope asking myself why my father did that to me?  I never got the answer but when my mother came I was sure to tell her all about it.

A few months after my parents got divorced, of course they didn’t tell us ,so we would nag our mother to call our dad and ask where he was ?. Every now and then we would call him but he never called us back, he forgot our birthdays so we quickly found out that he wasn’t worth it.  This past week I have been asking myself how life would’ve worked out if my parents never divorced and the story I told above kept reoccurring in my mind. And I came to the realization that we would’ve been deprived of so many things. My mother made being a single parent an easy job while my father escaped and still escapes from his parent duties.

What is alarming is that he is slowing trying to creep into my life lately, and I was asking myself why now? he cannot possible think that he is going to take all the credit of having  given life to an Economist when he doesn’t even know how much school fees cost can he ? after 18 years ?? Convenience better be playing tricks on him. It was his choice to abandon us all those years ago, absent fathers cannot have life easy, its absolute nonsensical.