How weird of me to call my father ‘Baba Chonco’ Mr Chonco sounds better, I am bullshitting you, dad sounds best. Hello dad! Before I continue with my letter, let me apologize in advance for the profanity, I am usually polite but certain words have come up in the letters I have been writing. Let me just say this before I get overly emotional, I love you. I don’t know how or why I do, but I love you. I have loved you since I knew that I am supposed to have a father. I have imagined how you look, in my imagination you were tall with a round belly and a large head and you were light-skinned. I guess I put together little pieces of what other people’s fathers looked like and certain features about me that I could not trace from mom and poof, tall, large belly and light-skinned.

Through the few instances where I saw different fathers interacting with their kids, I picked up or rather created an idea of what fathers are supposed to be like and how they are supposed to act around kids. Generally, they are scary, case in point, Ningi’s father. Though I have never interacted with him, Ningi spoke about him a lot in high school. Ow Ningi is my high school best friend. She always painted a picture of a scary man whom everyone runs away from when he is back from work. So, I knew fathers can be scary. What of Ayanda’s stepdad, him I interacted with, Ayanda’s family were our neighbours in Phoenix. From ubaba Khwela, I knew dads don’t say much, they show you they care by the simplest acts of gentleness like giving you the remote even if they were watching tv first or tapping your head comically as they pass you by in the passage. But you dad, in my thoughts you were different. You were overly protective of your baby girl (yes you called me baby girl, don’t you remember?). You laughed a lot; in my mind, we shared secret jokes that annoyed mom because she didn’t find them funny. When my dad got home from work, I would meet him at the gate excitedly to tell him about my day at school. Yes, we fought too, like any two people who love each other.

I remember days when I would come home from school feeling upset because I was called fat or whatever mean thing kids say, I would not like you very much in my head because I needed you, in reality, to say that I am beautiful to you no matter what shape I am and I needed to hear you say that you will deal with those bullies who hurt your baby girl. In those moments, your tall round belly person in my thoughts was not enough, I needed you to be in the flesh and it is in those moments of reality where we would ‘fight’.

Even in the worse of moments like ‘Father’s Day’ or the absolute worse for me, watching ‘Khumbula Ekhaya’ with mom and seeing reunions between children and their long lost fathers and seeing mom completely ignoring the elephant in the room and not even addressing me concerning you, even in those moments, I could never hate you or dream of ever shouting at you and asking for explanations about your absenteeism from my life like the sons and daughters I would see reuniting with long lost fathers, I just loved you and wanted to have you around.

Chonco, I must tell you, you have one crafty daughter, I wear it as a badge of honour because I never use my sneakiness for evil, as I smile ever so innocently…I remember using my craftiness as a way to start the conversation about you with mom. I was in primary school, not sure of the grade. I came up with the idea of a family tree school project that I had, a lie. I had filled in my family tree as much as I could with the details of my maternal side of the family and went to mom matter-of-factly and asked for assistance with filling in my father’s side of the tree, ingenious right dad? That is the first time I had heard of the surname Chonco and your name, Pat. I had no idea if it was Patrick or Pumpkin Patch but because of my ingenious plan, I got to hear a few details about you, though now that I have actually located your actual family, I see how mother dearest embellished the truth about your family a bit. My creativity gave me your half name and surname, I was told you have kids all over the place, you had a sister called Thandi whom you were very close to and that the Choncos are large-boned therefore explaining my weight. And they say lying is a bad thing, pssh! In the years to come when I got introduced to social media and the internet, I would search for different variations of Pat Chonco on every platform you could think of. Patrick Chonco, Patton Chono, Pat C, Chonco Pat, you name it I searched for it.

I am sure you are asking yourself, why on God’s green earth would you not just ask your mother, who is my father and where is he? The answer is, I was scared, I was very afraid. Not of the answer, but of hurting my mother. I love my mother, I love her more than anything in the world, I lived for her, I lived to please her. My therapist said I am enmeshed in her, rolling my eyes. In my mind, I believed she would be offended if I asked about a man who has had no contribution to my life other than DNA. I know it sounds farfetched but look at it from her point of view, I do that a lot, looking at things from someone else’s point of view. Here is a woman who works hard, from 12 AM to 9 PM sometimes much later at night, working hard to provide for kids

she did not create on her own, me and my two older brothers, I don’t know how much she shared with you but I have two older brothers, they are not yours duh but yeah woman who works hard, to give me a good life and I had a good life compared to most who were raised by single parents. This ungrateful daughter who has had a soft life courtesy of mom dares asks about a man who contributed nothing, that’s how I looked at it and did not want to hurt her especially because I knew if I met you, I would love you, I wouldn’t care about what had happened to cause you to be absent from my life.

Mom did not spoil me; I was disciplined when needed but I do see now that she was very protective and possessive of me. I was hers and hers alone. I did not get to bond with my brothers and the rest of my family because I spent most of my time with her and I am not complaining, I do not care much for the Mthalanes, I love them of course but I have never felt that I fully belong with them, I belong to mom, where she is that was my home, she was my home. I urge you to not comment on the kind of relationship I had with mom, let’s leave that one for the therapist.

I do not know why, but dad I love you. I wish so very much that you saw what a fine woman mom raised. How I wish you got to know me, the good the bad and the worse. Sometimes I do blame a lot of how I turned out because of your absence, which, you have to bear, though I have placed you on a pedestal of sorts. I wish very much that I had gotten to know you as well, please tell me you were funny, someone needs to be responsible for my sense of humour. I am thankful though that I am getting to know you from my siblings, your sons and daughters, particularly that son of yours Delani, that one is a letter on its own. I need to thank you for creating that one, if he is anything to go by, then perhaps you were that tall round-bellied light skinned big headed kind man that lived rent-free in my imagination and heart.