No man of my life: My father, Unoka

The Festive Season

It is the post-harvest festive season again.  Music, dances and laughter can be seen and heard everywhere around Umuofia. It is the time which he loved the most. The irritating gleeful story of him being so blessed and so blithe when young kept on ringing in my mind, causing me to lose concentration to work. He would stare at the sky in awe and retold his same old story again and again…

“I was so alive and so free, so spontaneous and so young. I always did, gazing at the bright blue sapphire sky and the white cotton clouds, waiting for the first kites that return with the dry season, and welcoming the leisurely sailing kites with tunes and rhythms. The sun, the sky and the songs have brought so much joy and laughter to my childhood…  ”

That was when he was young.  He, the grown up, was a total failure.

Ten years had passed by in a blink of eye.  He had left my life for ten whole years. Should I thank the ancestor for bringing him away from my life? Well, I have no answer for that. People always say that any one man in the world can father a child, but it takes a special man to be a Dad. He was never my dad. He did not even fulfil his responsibility as a father to fed the family and provide a decent life. He was just an irresponsible lazy old man that gave me this pathetic life.

When I was young

There was lot of times when I wish that I was not born to this lazy, squandering, and effeminate father. He was never a real man of Umuofia. Not only that he did not prowess in wars, he never had a very successful crop enough to feed the family. To sustain the family, I have to start helping my mum and the girls in the barn so that at least we have enough food for ourselves.  When all other young boys were running around the yam barn playing so merrily, I can only stand in the corner watching them enviously. They would not let me join and I did not have the leisure time to join the fun. I was the poor hungry kid who never knows the joy of child games. The despair and sadness I felt is still vividly imprinted in my heart. 

Since then, I promised myself that I will not walk in your path. No musician can succeed and no dreamer can feed his stomach. I will be the exact opposite of this man who brought me so much embarrassment and sufferings. I must be a man full of masculinity and manliness. There will not be an idle, poor, profligate, cowardly, gentle Okonkwo in the future but a productive, wealthy, thrifty, brave man of Umuofia. Thus, when I have grown old enough to start my own life, I left the miserable home and start anew. I have worked extremely hard and like the rainbow after the rain, I have found my way out of poverty. My hard work and prowess in war have earned me a position of high status in my clan, and I attained wealth sufficient to support three wives and all my children. Look how successful I am! Ha ha!

My Family

Here it goes a famous saying of who a dad can be to his sons and daughters, "A dad is a son's first hero and a daughter's first love."  He was never my hero. What he brought the most to me is not joy and love but poverty and hunger; what he taught me of life is not hard work and success but failure. I thank the egwuwu and our ancestor that I have grown too strong to become like him. The only thing he left for me is embarrassment.

 He is no man of my life. I wondered why I would write about him when I should not even think of him. He is such a shy of blood.