SONHOOD Chapter 2 BORROWED LOVE

It was all a borrowed love.

It was an easy win to my father’s heart. my father got to tell me a beautiful story which I won’t forget, it was in the mid-1900s. My father was only about 7 years of age, at this time he stayed with his father and family members back in Delta State, Nigeria.

Growing up in Delta was an amazing experience Mr. Lucky said, it was a small village, everyone knew everyone, hardly did people get missing, but if someone got missing, my father said there was a ceremonial ritual they had back then to bring back the missing person to their families. it was a traditional ceremony which had been passed down from generations to generations in order to help the people of the village get back their missing loved ones, in which Mr. Lucky was lucky enough to witness a ceremonial ritual his family had for a family member. The missing individual from Mr. Lucky’s family was Mary by name Mr. Lucky’s sister, Mary was a very beautiful light skin young lady (according to my father she had the most beautiful skin in the whole village) and at this time, Mary was far more older then my father.

Aunty Mary was in Germany, apparently, she was with some rich lady, who was helping her start up a life there in Germany, but back home in Nigeria, she was considered a missing person and her families were being worried about her. not having to had heard from her in a long time and not knowing her where about nor her wellbeing, due to this, the family decided to have the popular missing person ceremonial ritual to help them bring back home their beloved Mary.

The ceremony was normally done by the village’s herbalist, which they would have a fire used to roast a tuber yam while saying some incantation over it and repeatedly saying the family’s name and the missing person’s name, over the yam.

It’s a great way to always keep the family together, aunty Mary in Germany not knowing what had been happening on her behalf back in Nigeria, started feeling unpleasant with herself and her surrounding, with no time she lost control of herself and felt a great strong urge to be back home, not having money of her own, aunty Mary told the rich lady she stayed with what she was feeling and needed to be home. The rich lady urged her to not leave, convincing and remembering her how hard she had been working and with no time she would have a life and could start a family there in Germany. Aunty Mary was blinded with the desire to be home, which was caused by the ceremonial ritual being done in the village back in Nigeria and aunty Mary insisted she needed to be home, being generous as always, the rich lady gave aunty Mary some cash for the flight ticket back home to Nigeria and wished her off, being so unfortunate aunty Mary boarded a Ghanaian airplane and landed in Ghana, with no idea what or why she was going back home, feeling confused and frustrated with herself, she had no idea what to do after wards, luckily for her the people around the airport saw her and decided to help her get back home, while the people around tried to help aunty Mary, she couldn’t explain why nor where she was going to, all aunty Mary could say was “HOME”, Looking at her passport the people around understood she was Nigerian and from Delta state, the good people surrounding her did all they could do to make sure she gets back home to Delta state, Nigeria.

Aunty Mary got home and stayed for a day or two before understanding all that had happened, my father said she got angry and wasn’t at peace with the family for doing such a thing to her and it is said she still hates the family to this day and never wants to stay home ever again and, so did my father.

My father Mr. Lucky, grew up with doubt and fear for his family and the people of his village, he left the village and moved to a different city at a young age not wanting anything to do with his people and didn’t return back to them for over 35 years, although my father is regarded as the head of his family due to being the first son of his father, my father doesn’t want the honor and isn’t much of a family man.

It’s a beautiful slice of my father’s family story, while I listened to the story, I felt scared and unhappy with my ancestors for they tampered with powers they didn’t have clear understanding about and could had done more harm than good, although I went to sleep that night with a smile on my face and a warm heart filled with joy and happiness, I got to connect more with my father that night than I have ever done my whole life.

I got to know my father, and I loved and adored what I knew about him, we kept having laughs and talks like that more often we became more closer than I was expecting, I felt loved like a son should feel from my father and I did all I could to make sure my father felt love like a father should feel, I would wake up every morning to pray, randomly got something for my father, followed my father to where ever he was willing to go, got to know my father’s friends and I could say I loved it so much when he would say to his friend “ This is my Son” it made me felt loved.

With time I learned my father always had love for me but couldn’t just show it, he couldn’t just show love to me the way I was expecting love to be shown to me by a father but he did love me, I knew there was a space for me in his heart, even if it was filled up with anger and hate for the corrupt government, I had a place there in Mr. Lucky’s heart

I loved and enjoyed the relationship I had created with my father and I was hoping it would last forever but nothing does last forever, the love I got from my father was something so special to me because being honest; he couldn’t be replaced although I have tried so many times and failed like I was expected to because even if I got loved and treated like a son from another man, I would always have a dark unshakeable thought of being rejected by my biological father.