At 1 a.m in the morning of the 23^rd December 2015, my mom, sisters and I exchanged our feelings of my stepfather, who would be buried the next day. As I listened to them talk about him, I wondered if there had been something I missed out. This man was kind, loving, and caring. He had been there when my mother needed someone to pay her bills and to give her shelter. To this, I share everyone’s sentiments, and appreciate his kind gesture and love to take us in when my own father rejected us. Yet why am I so defiant towards the thought of owning him as my father?

Sometimes, we seem so sure of something or someone so much that we are convinced that they will never change. Yet life has a way of disappointing us in unexpected ways. When I received the news that my stepfather was dead, I was emotionless. I was void of feelings, until hours later when it hit me that my stepfather was dead. That is when the turmoil inside began. For so long, I thought I knew the man whose name I carry. My memory of the past tells a story of a man, who did not care whether I was fed or not. He seemed to care less whether I was hurting or not and above all, whether I went to school or not. “What do you want money for? Women are trained to cook, raise children and take care of the house. Go and ask your mother for money.” At the age of 9, I felt like my world was collapsing over 1,500 cfa, which was my school fees in class 1 or grade 1. That is when I concluded that this man did not care for me. For many years, I held unto that thought.

As we, four women talked and listened to each other’s feelings, we realized that there was a lot of regret for the better part. My mother saw a man who cared for her and fought against unseen forces that controlled him, thus leading him to neglect those he cared for. As an eyewitness, she testifies to his last few years, where they demonstrated his total control of his mind; revealing the man, he was truly inside. In his last few years, he sought to re-establish the relationship he once had with his children and grandchildren. He was sorry for the things he had done and not done. He had been a difficult man to live with, but he accepted the responsibility for children he did not create. He had taken care of them in his own level and been a man who desired to be good. My mother thus concluded that much of what he did was out of ignorance and at that moment, I truly felt sorry for her and the husband she had lost. My two sisters felt guilty for not reaching out to him sooner. They felt they had neglected him and only reached out to him when it was too late.

What about me? I do acknowledge and respect the fact that he paid my mother’s bride price back and the price on all her children’s head. Like I mentioned earlier, I felt lost in my emotions, as I wondered what my family would think of me. I did not want them to think of me as ungrateful. Yet I could not just fake feelings and accept him as my father. However, I felt guilty that I never knew him and I wished I had given him a chance to know me for the woman I am today. I felt out of place for not being able to claim him as my father. Before I left home, I was shy, timid and a loner. I always felt out of place and found it hard to belong. While sitting with my family and speaking about my stepfather, I felt like a total stranger to them. It has been about sixteen years, which I grew up outside of my own home and tradition. I have been exposed to so many different cultures, which have shaped and built the person I am, and it would be difficult to break away from that knowledge.

Yet, in all of this turmoil, I found something else. I found forgiveness towards the man I thought I knew and acceptance of the man I never knew. If he could live a few more years, I would take the chance to see past the hard man I thought I knew; to the man everyone seemed to know. In all, I was grateful that my heavenly father was there to take care of everything and execute his will in our moment of confusion.