Bymark-

“I would make a better president than Museveni.” I cannot tell you how many times I heard that growing up. But what I can tell you, is how happy it made me feel everytime I heard it. Any man who claimed he could be better than the ruler of this land, was to me a great man. His name was Bymark. Bymark was my dad.

Sometimes I catch my mother looking at me (I have come to understand that it is coz I remind her of dad), sometimes longingly, sometimes with anger. I guess from all those times he hurt her. From all the times he was never there. For all those times he was with other women. And sometimes in her distracted trance she will say to me “go away Bymark.” My mum is not senile. I just look like my dad. In some angles (whatever that means). And sometimes my mum says it is the way I talk. “In the same proud way that Bymark used to talk” she describes it.

But this is not about my mother. It is about my father. It is that I will never talk to him again. Have him hold my hand crossing the road even if I was a big girl and it embarrassed me terribly. He will never say to me “antipop, come here. We need to talk,” in a tone that only suggested I was in big trouble. He will never creep up on me (I let him believe it was always a surprise) and tickle me. He will never play any fools day pranks on me. And my other siblings. I tend to get carried away. To think that him and I are the only people that existed, in the whole world. Our world. Really I have siblings. I just love to hog him. Fuck it, I love him.

1st April 1995, my dad woke my sister and I at 5:30am and told us that he had asked his workmate to bring us milk as he had forgotten to buy it the day before, so to go wait for him outside the gate. Well, I had just wet my bed (shocking!) and I was glad to get out of there, but my sister was not too happy. Anyway, armed with jackets and blankets, we camped outside the gate and waited. 7:30am or there abouts, a pissed off Susan (my sis, RIP) tells me to go tell dad we were tired of waiting and could we come back to bed? So I go, knock at his door, relay the message and to my surprise he bursts out laughing and then said he could not believe we had been out there the whole time. He asks Susan and I to go pick the calendar and read out loud what it said on the date. Susan failed to get the joke and did not talk to my dad for like a week. I thought his punch line was just too damn good. I still laugh about it every time.

Anyway, this was about honoring my father. Who raised me as a single dad (well, he had a string of girlfriends.) Talked to me about periods (sic), about boys (threatened really) taught me to do crossword puzzles, cheated every time we played monopoly, and found it funny that I could not pronounce the word ‘ratio’ [rah-tea-oh]. That dad, who I miss. Who I never got to tell about my first period, about discovering boys and the losers they turned out to be, who never saw me graduate, who cant see me now. Well, I know it is a long shot but if u somehow negotiated your way into heaven dad, I trust u had a happy father’s day. Because I was thinking of you.