When I was small my mother told me a lie. She said my father had died before I was born. That the trees and hills witnessed his fall. She told me of the funeral, of the things people said and the things people did.
But this was the same lie she told my junior brother and the one that came after him. Since it was so it simply means different men fathered us, and each of this men died before their offspring was born.
Later I came to know the truth: that my elder brother was the only true son of our father. The man whose name we bear. I came to know that my mother was an unfortunate bride whose husband had died in her fifth month of marriage. But because of the pregnancy she had stayed. And when she delivered a boy. She had to stay. And staying means giving birth to more children so as to keep Okafo’s name.
The truth made me hate my mother. I wasn’t happy I was brought into the world under this circumstance. What if perchance I die tomorrow Okafo wouldn’t call me his son in the land of the Spirit because I was born four years after his death. His true son remains Nnaemeka my elder brother.
Anger consumed me, I pestered my mother about my father’s identity. I wanted so much to belong somewhere. I couldn’t grasp the truth that I was ‘amuru n’ulo’. I couldn’t.
Later mother revealed my father’s identity to me. She whispered his name and I smiled. The man who fathered me is a somebody and because of this I attend the morning Mass everyday.
Not only to say my thanks. But to watch my father as he officiates the mass
