December 12th, 2012

She asked about you for the first time. Our daughter asked about you for the first time this year and I didn't have any answer for her. Our daughter. The daughter you didn't even know existed even though each day she looks more and more like you. Same amber eyes which glows like the sun at its peak. Same heart shaped lips that wears dissatisfaction in shades that could never be ignored. Same high cheekbones that stands proudly like a peacock amongst birds. And with a height that seems to reach for stars as if it couldn't stand being close to earth. She couldn't be anyone else's, AK. No one!

Mamman named her Aisha after his mother no doubt in spite but he has no idea that there is little he does that affect me anymore. She is my daughter, our daughter, and to me that was more than enough. She's called Aisha Mamman Shehu. She is ten and the most beautiful girl in the entire universe. She's also smart, funny and has the softest of hearts. And this beautiful, amazing, kind girl with a heart of gold very much like yours had asked about you. I didn't even know she knew you existed but she had asked me about you. It was on a rather hot evening with the sun sinking rather hastily for an especially long day and I said nothing. In my defense, it wasn't the kind of a day you'd expect a life altering question from your ten year old daughter. It wasn't the kind of question you'd expect from your daughter whom had never shown even a modicum of interest in your rather irregular life simple; at least not while in the kitchen preparing the evening meal.

What was I supposed to say? Or feel? Or even react? Nothing had prepared me. I mean we had just shared a laugh a mere minute ago about a boy in her class who was fond of pranking others and she had decided to give him a dose of his medicine today. She's like that, you see, giving back as much as she receives. I find it alarming sometimes, how unforgiving it made her, but she's never crossed the line into cruelty and despite how scared I am, I won't lie how glad it sometimes made me. I'm glad I didn't have to worry about her. What was I to say when she'd suddenly offed the taps; she was washing the vegetables, and without looking at me, she'd asked in a voice which knew secrets had been seeded in places now weeded in shades of blue and red; in bruises glimpsed, scars hidden and eyes dimmed in a sorrow too thick to mask. What do you say to your ten year old daughter living with her parents who suddenly asks where her birth father is?

She could have asked who you are and perhaps I might have an answer for her. But no. She wanted to know where you were. How was I supposed to tell her I didn't know? How was I supposed to explain to a ten year old that your father had died and you had disappeared with your mother without a word? How do I explain that I have been writing letters to a ghost for ten years now? I had no answer for her. I wish I did but I don't. And at my silence, she'd turned up the taps, finished her chore and that's the end of it.

It makes me unbearably sad. Not your absence. Not your silence. It made me unbearably sad for her. How wrong must I be living my life for my ten year old child to have matured enough to ask such question of her lacking mother? Not that she was ever the kind to hide her emotions. Not at all. Aisha has always carried on her shoulder her gloominess; and her worries; and her concerns; and her sadness like she dares the world to dare ignore them. It were as if as much as I hide, she reveals. It make her seem to lack a lot but for reasons best known to her, she doesn't seem to mind. It makes me unbearably sad that my daughter lives her life lacking a lot because of her pathetic mother.

Why am I pathetic, AK? How did I become this pitiful, shameful person? I wasn't like this before. I know I wasn't. But then why is it getting easier and easier to accept rather than question; to just let things happen to me instead of fighting? What happened to the girl who used to love you? What made her this woman I've become? I look into the mirror and see a ghost, AK. I look into the mirror and don't see me.

I don't blame you for how my life turned out, AK, or anyone else even for my fate, but today, for the first time, I wish I can blame something for this person I've become other than fate.

Yours forever,
Jiddah Adam Yusuf