Daddy, Where Are You?

I have tried for the umpteenth time to write this. But each time, my fingers turned numb avoiding the pitch blackness and doted white spots of my keyboard. Even when I had to force them to hit the keyboard, they go stubborn with numbness. My body system seemed to have collapsed, and my blood chillingly congealing.

I tell you, it’s not easy at all when that numbness overrides the ceaseless flow of blood in one’s system. No matter how hard one fights it or wishes it away, one is still going to…look stupid and unstable. I was recently tested.

Dateline was April 18, 2010. Time was 11:15pm, so I was told. The incident that was to affect my life presented itself. And I silently wept in the confines of the room. The walls shamelessly looked on, daring me to control the unabated sobs as I began mourning my father. It was barely five minutes he passed on. He left this world of nothingness in a hurry and took a long walk from its insanity to the land of no-return, to have a deserved rest. The sobs, as if they looked for an escape route, struggled to tear my ribs apart. The more I tried to control that flow, the stronger the build up became. It just poured.

Innocent Chikezie Francis Anyanwu, known by business associates as Innofrance (name on his complimentary card) or Anyanwu by his colleagues, and Dee Inno by his wife, my mum, and other close relatives, was born 65 years ago. He never had the opportunity of a tertiary education after Standard Six which he passed at Merit level. He would tell us he couldnt go any further because his elder brother who would have seen him through school died as soon as he was out of elementary school.

He later trained as a Mason. In popular parlance, he was a bricklayer. And he never hid the fact of that profession which he treasured. He would humbly and jokingly too refer to himself as a poor and struggling “Nwa Bricklayer”. But he was a classical example of a worthy father. He gladly, though painstakingly did what most of his peers felt was impossible. At a time when it was an aberration to see the children of a common labourer in the tertiary institution, dad did his best to see us through the type of education he never had.

Despite his inability to make it to a higher education, my father tasked himself on reading books and newspapers. He was my number one fan when I started my writing career. As I hit the keyboard, the flashback of how he would peruse some of the editions of the paper I had worked for are made vivid. Dad would often parade copies before his contemporaries with that little show of pride 'My son wrote this and that' he would say.

Dad was an unapologetic workaholic. He could write and read very well, in spite of his short education, thereby denying us his children the bragging right of writing his letters like most of his colleagues would get people to do for them. But he never got around to using the GSM. He never liked it, and never bothered to use any phone we bought for him.

He was a one-woman man. It was his strong beliefs in the institution of marriage that strengthened my resolve to be a good man to any lady I will decide to spend the rest of my life with, no matter what. He never raised his hand on my mum in spite of his temperament. He was the disciplinarian of my parents. He taught us the virtues of honesty, bravery and hardwork.

Just like a typical choleric, my father, and father to my other five siblings, was one of the finest, honest, straight forward, dependable, brave, fearless men this earth will always be proud to have produced. He liked being historic whenever situation called for it or when we asked questions about our clan or kinsmen. In fact, he would effortlessly reenact the history of my town, my forefathers, and what have you.

And I ask again 'Daddy, where really are you now?'. Who will tell us those stories about our clan? Who will...no need asking any more. I know he will never get to answer my simple questions.

But I can sense the knowing smile that goes with that answer. I know, just like every good man, that dad is somewhere comfortable in the bosom of the Lord.

RIP dad!

We shall try to supersede all you did.