She Was Only 12...

It wasn't until September 1995 that I understood in clear terms, what my mother went through, and the story about my own life.

I was 13 years old when a woman in my mother's village walked up to me and said these words:

"He will come for you. His first child from his wife is a girl; he will come for you".

I wanted to say something, like asking her who she was talking about, but I couldn't say a word. I just stood there like someone that has been hypnotised.

Then she ran her fingers through my hair, hugged me, pat me on the back and then finally squat right before me, looking straight into my eyes and said, "may God favour you, your mother will find herself again through you". Then she left me, greeting other women that were returning from a stream nearby.

I stood there with many questions in my head. Who is the "he" that'll come for me? Why should I celebrate because the man she was talking about just had a baby girl from his wife? How could my mother's happiness be something to be found in me, sometimes in the future when I may have received "God's favour".

I was completely lost in thought as I always have. I have lived with countless "relatives". All but briefly. No one said anything but I knew there was something about me, about my mother and the man between us.

It dawned on me soon after that at age 13, I had no mental picture of what my father looked like, where he was and what I meant to him. I had not seen him. Or I may have seen him but not know him? I had no idea.

All I knew at the time was that an aunt I was asked to live with briefly, was often been threatened by her husband for bringing a "bastard" to his house. I did not even know what a bastard meant at this point. But she always insisted in her argument that her younger brother was responsible for the child.

Incidentally, this my aunt had only daughters, five of them. But the husband had other wives, with sons.

I could add one and two together and concluded that my father could probably be somewhere avoiding me, or rejecting me as his son. My aunt may also not be too sure if the brother was my father; she could be fighting for me because she was in need of a male child? In some parts of African cultures, if a man has no son yet, he is considered nearly childless. The wives are always to blame for having female children. Always!

To continue a man's "family name", he must have a son, through whom the family name could be preserved.

So, my supposed father just had a daughter from his wife, which the woman I met earlier, considered "a good omen" for me, a shot at a second chance to have my father come for me. I forgot to even add that the woman even wished my father would only have daughters from his wife. She wanted me to be accepted and loved at all costs.

I must say at this point that having a son or daughter makes no difference at all. Every child can continue the family name. Every child is special. No child should be valued less or more solely because of the gender they carry or identify with.

I was born out of wedlock, and my mother is 12 years older than me!

But what really happened?

TO BE CONTINUED...