Did you read the first and second parts of this story, My Father Is a Disgrace To Other Fathers? If you’re yet to read them, please, do so, now, before you continue with this part.
On our arrival in Holland, my Ugandan friend and I did exactly as his lawyer had been advised us. We changed our names before any other thing else.
I dropped my baptismal name and left only my Nigerian indigenous name. And instead of my grandfather’s name, which I used to bear, I started using my biological father’s name as my surname, even though he was not in the picture of my life.
In order to complete that process, I had to send some money to a trust friend of mine in Nigeria, to enable him procure a new Nigerian international passport for me.
As a fast learner, it didn’t take me time to learn and understand the Dutch language. That helped me to adapt fast to the culture and other ways of life of the Dutch people. It was in that process that I made some friends who assisted me to secure my first job there.
Part of my first-ever salary in Holland, according to the culture of my people, was sent to my sweet mother in Nigeria. She was so happy and appreciative about it and could not stop praying for me on phone anytime I called her.
The next gift I sent her was a Volkswagen bus. It was loaded with different household equipment, including a blender, colour television, kitchen utensils, among others, before being shipped to her in Nigeria.
That gift was followed almost immediately by another gift, a sweet and sparkling chocolate-colour Toyota Camry. I bought for her as a personal car.
As soon as the news of her car-gift filtered into the ears of my father, he started making frantic efforts to reconcile with her.
I was terrible annoyed when my mother told me, on phone, that my father was asking her for settlement and reconciliation. But since she insisted that we should, for God’s sake, give him a second chance, I had no choice but to dance to her tune.
My mother’s plea for us to forgive my father came exactly when I was thinking of getting married. That was really a good opportunity for us to reconcile and come together as one family.
To convince my father that I had forgiven him, I had to buy a car for him, the way I did for my mother. In addition to that, I made it a point of duty to be sending him some allowances at the end of every month, even though he had a good job. I also bought things for his new wife and their children.
The car I bought for my father brought me more pains instead of joy. Apart from sending him money to fix it anytime his car developed a fault, I was always bombarded with the bad news of my father using the car to lure women, including married ones, to sex.
Women are always excited whenever their children, especially their sons, are about to get married. My mother was no exception. She was so excited when I told her of my plan to get married.
…to be continued next week
P.S. Because of the careless attitude of my father towards me while I was growing up, I am always excited whenever I see animals, who may not be as sensible as humans, but are caring towards their young ones.
As a result of my love for them, I am going to use their photographs to illustrate each part of my four-part story.
