My Father, My Hero

By: Onika Nkrumah

I had a meeting to attend. 

Intuitively, I chose not to, instead I headed straight to the nursing home where he had been living since his health took a turn for the worse. 

It was the last time I would see my Father alive. 

The next day, April 1^st at 7.05 am, he was dead at the age of seventy nine and it really seemed that the universe was playing a cruel April fool’s joke on me. 

I can’t say that it was totally unexpected, my father suffered from a cocktail of illnesses.  But I was not prepared for his rapid deterioration, besides who is ever ready to let go of a loved one?

My father was born Kenneth Callender, later he would change his name to Akinyele Masaba Nkrumah.  He married my mother, Sylvia and they had four daughters and one son. 

From the start I was a real daddy’s girl and he was my hero.

On Sundays, he would load me, my brother and the neighborhood children into his van and head to the San Fernando wharf for a swim. 

A strong swimmer, he would swim into the distance, ignoring my cries to come back.

He had an infectious laugh and even without knowing the source of his amusement, one couldn’t help but to join in. 

My father began his career as a policeman and later became a coastguardsman.  A true sailor he often spoke as if he was still in command of a ship somewhere. 

In his best fake British accent he would sometimes jokingly refer to us as “deckhands”.

Upon his retirement, Dad operated a small parlor, he had a business head but he didn’t have a business heart.  He often operated his shop as if it were a charity, giving away groceries and money to almost anyone with a sad story.  Their names he would record in his little black book but would somehow forget to collect the debt. 

I would be furious but he couldn’t be bothered, it was as if he had no use for money.

Some regretfully, took his kindness for weakness and stole from him. 

Once, my father fought off a would-be thief with a homemade spear, the story made newspaper headlines. 

My father was a complicated man.  He was extremely intelligent, proud and loving but in his later life he became a ‘squirrel’, hoarding stuff that he seemed unable to part with. 

This was the beginning, the external representation of the internal deterioration his brain was experiencing and which ultimately took his life.

A man ahead of his time, he embraced his African heritage and even changed his name at a time when it was still unfashionable - Dad received much ridicule and scorn for his beliefs but he remained resolute.

A master storyteller, my father would begin all his tales predictably with “In those days…”

He loved East Indian, kung fu and western movies and Sunday evening wrestling was an event in our home, his favorite was Victor Jovica.

I remember dancing on his toes to the trumpet of Ace Cannon and in our living room is where I first heard the sweet voice of South African singer, Miriam Makeba.

For many years, my father kept a shotgun above his bed. 

He created works of art out of driftwood while listening to the BBC, he taught himself Spanish.  By now you realize that my father was eclectic and bohemian in spirit.  He lived by the mantra “Maintain the spirit of inquiry and a critical faculty”, he never stopped wanting to learn and he encouraged his children to do the same.

As a child, I was sometimes afraid of the dark, when the shadows became too menacing I would call out from my bed: “Daddy”. 

Moments later, his response would echo back: “daaahling” and he would come to retrieve me from my nightmares.

I was so proud of my father that I would take my schoolmates home to meet him.  But Daddy was playful and would make jokes at my expense, prompting me to roll my eyes with childish disgust and say with disdain, “Daddy, you showing off again”.

Never one to spare the rod and spoil the child when we were in need of discipline, my father would send us to fetch the “elephant”, his pet name for his rod of correction.

Whenever my father left the house, I was gripped by anxiety.  

I would watch him, from the window until he disappeared from sight, afraid that he wouldn’t return, that some tragedy might steal him from me.

Even as a teenager I loved my parents so much that I wished I would die before them – because I couldn’t imagine life without either. 

“Death is a natural part of life”, he would say, his words comfort me today.

Still, I wish he could have stayed a little longer.

I wish he could have walked me down the aisle. 

I wish that my future children could have the privilege of playing on their grandfather’s knee.

Instead, I have to content myself with knowing that he lived a fruitful life and that I am one of his accomplishments.

I will never know the full extent of the discomfort he may have felt in those last days, he responded to all inquiries about his health by saying stoically, “I feeling good”. 

That was vintage Daddy, he never wanted to alarm or inconvenience anybody.

My father is dead and I am now fatherless.

But I know that in some way, his spirit will continue to guide me and that he will be there for every future milestone in my life.

I can see him now… laughing, poking, joking, dancing, playing, mocking, teasing.

And if I am very quiet and I call out “Daddy”

I can still hear the echo: “Daaahling”!