44 Years and 4 Months

De: Doreen Mampani

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

God laid it upon my heart to write these poems about my late father. A man I was deprived to take care of me. In spite the fact that among his five daughters I’m the only one who looks like me he rejected me for 44 years. During his last days he was asking for me. I was so hurt by his rejection that I did not visit him. I had a burden to know who my real father was. I went on fasting eating only in the evenings. I planned for 70 days but only fasted 50 days. My prayer was for God to reveal to me my real father. During that time my father started asking for me. When my sister phoned me and said our father was poisoned I thought he would recover. He informed her after three days of drinking the poison because he thought it was a minor thing. The doctors wanted to transfer him to another hospital for an operation. He was in pain, unable to walk. His stomach was swollen and painful. I was told that an x-ray showed blood in the stomach. A week before he was poisoned I was mugged and threatened to be stabbed and raped. I was under shock of the mugging and then the shock of the poisoning of my father. Someone said my father was in bondage of a charm and it was broken a few months before he died. I was told that his mother confessed of bewitching him to take care of her, her daughter and sons. She said she tied a charm and planned to break it when he educated her sons and ended poverty in the family. She went to her grave regretting that she could not find the charm so that she could break it. My late father was a slave to his younger brothers and elder sister until his death. He was called Doctor Tailor because he was a very skilled tailor. He worked until his death but left no money for me – I cannot talk about my big sister and half sisters because I do not know if he left anything for them. He took care of his mother, sister and brothers and not his own children. He regretted how he did not marry my mother and also to take care of his children. He wanted to reconcile with my mother. He wanted to apologize to me. He regretted of his many years of hard work but not taking care of me and my sisters. A day before he died, I had sorrow deep within me. I cried and prayed about two hours. I said a prayer for the first and last time for my father. The next day he died. Though he was a wealthy man, he bought houses youngest brother, he bought cars for his youngest brother and he had money not in his name. He never had a title deed, he never drove any of the cars he bought. To my knowledge he never had a driver’s license because his youngest brother drove the cars. He was intelligent, a hard worker, yet he left no inheritance for his children. God gave me a poem which I read at his funeral. Most of his relatives saw me for the first time. I was rejected by my father when he found out that my mother was pregnant with me until a few months just before his death.