What does it mean to be Someone's Daughter? It's not just a state of being, an act of birth, being a daughter implies an intricate and networked relationship- the present joining hands with the closest DNA to my past and leaving a hand free for my own daughter, a promise to the future.
My earliest memories are of my father and his father. Feeling loved and protected. My
grandparents’ house in Kampala, lined one of the main streets in Uganda, and each year, on
the National Independence Day, my grandpa would sit with me on the verandah and tell me
that all the generals and soldiers in their freshly ironed army uniforms and shiny medals
were celebrating me, my birthday, which falls on the same day. I probably didn’t understand
much, but I felt I belonged there, in a way I have never felt since. That swelling of love and
caring, the safe arms to fall out of trees into, the long legs I could hide behind when I didn’t
want to be found.
That trust was broken, irrevocably when I was kidnapped, very young and later abandoned by the side of a road, in the middle of nowhere. I remember being so afraid, being picked up by a family in a car with loads of kids and being taken to a police station, where my own father and his father were ashen and looked as if they had just received a death sentence. I know in my head that they weren’t responsible, but I could never trust anyone with my safety, and consequently, I sought approval and gratification from unsafe people and places.
I became vulnerable, easy prey for the harmful sexual predators that harboured in my extended family.
Soon after we moved to England and my beloved grandfather died. That shadow has never
really lifted from my heart. I still remember the jaunts to the ice cream shop after yet another
vaccination, or painful trip to the dentist. He had become my safety net when my parents’
marriage started to fall apart and domestic abuse, physical violence and alcohol tore the
fabric of my family to shreds.
I became my father’s daughter again, soon before he died – I think he knew he was dying.
He had called, for the third time in 15 minutes to speak to Marina, my own daughter, whom
he adored. For the third time I told him she wasn’t back from school yet. His voice sounded
like it always had, deep, Anglo Indian RP, but he was clearly confused. I promised to call him
as soon as she was home.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice breaking for less than a second.
“No, no it’s fine, don’t worry. I’ll call you as soon as I’m back from collecting her.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he urged, “sorry I couldn’t be the father you needed. But I always tried and I
always loved you the most, too much.”
Aware that I needed to leave to collect Marina from school, I didn’t want to cut him off. I had
never heard him like this before. His voice was tearful and uncertain.
“Sorry for what Dad, you’re the best Dad.”
Even when we had had fights and arguments that crossed continents and didn’t speak for
years at a time, we had a pact. We would always call each other on our birthdays. That
always broke the ice, no matter how awkward the situation had been, the horrible things we
had said to each other, the avowed abandonment, the seas of distance narrowed and there
was always a bridge to a way back.
“Sorry I couldn’t be there in the way that you needed, that I didn’t stop what was happening to you.”
My heart stopped. Oh this.
Acknowledgment now.
“It’s all in the past, now, Dad.” I couldn’t have this conversation now, I was going to be late to collect Marina from the school gates and she would pout, sticking her thumb in her mouth and not speaking to me for hours.
“I should have done more. I should have protected you.”
A hundred questions scrambled my head. What did he know?
I watched the urban Londoners below, from my balcony, crawling like ants, scurrying about
in their own lives, oblivious to my gaze. I didn’t know what to say, or what this was. This was new.
“It’s OK, you were the best Dad you could be. You did the best you could. I have to go.”
“Can I speak to Marina, now?”
“Yes, remember, I have to go now and collect her, or I’ll be late and she will be cross. But I’ll call you when we’re back home.”
“Oh. Yes. Don’t forget to call me.”
I stared at the phone in my hand. What just happened? Had he known and not stopped it?
Had he just found out?
Wrapped in my own thoughts and being pulled back into the past, I made my way out into the noisy London street and headed down the grand streets, with their limestone fronted mansions and elegant townhouses, a world away from the one storey house my grandparents had lived in. That felt like my home. I walked fast, anxious about being late and made my way to the school.
I saw a father’s hand reach out for a smaller hand, the look on his daughter’s face, when she saw him. Love. Relief. Joy.
