Aga Khan Hospital’s third floor, which houses the maternity unit, is a truly haunted wing. Ironically, although this section of the hospital is where life is conceived, it’s also the part of the hospital that is defined by such torture and pain. A place defined by such unbridled horror, one which is borne from most the unlikely of places; the womb. But also quite often death lurks along those corridors as well, trying on unlocked doors, looking for a room in which it can cast its evil.
And it’s within those walls that my little angel – Tamisha Biko – was borne exactly three years and one week ago today.
The reason why I’m writing this is because she joined school last Monday, a day before her birthday and like any dad will tell you that surely invariably has to go up the wall of fame. This piece is largely about her. I hope when she grows up she will read this and feel slightly embarrassed, but mostly pride. But there is a good chance I will be in jail when she is old enough to comprehend the magnitude of the feelings that soak this piece. I will be in jail because some teenage rat with a diamond stud hanging from his ear pressed my gate buzzer to ask for her. And I fed the little eejit a slug for his ill manners.
***
A room. White walls. A bed. On the bed is a grumpy and preggies lady, 9months into it, the homestretch. The preggies lady is the missus; heavy like a barge, moody like a lone buffalo. And then there is me; father in waiting, clueless and pressed (didn’t know where the johns were and because I’m a man, didn’t want to ask). It’s just clocked 10pm. It’s a nippy night. It’s early in the year of 2008 and the post elections violence still lingers like a bad kiss. The country is still bruised; you can tell from the vulnerability and apprehension in the eyes of the nurses.
But babies have to be born. Life has to move on. The expected date of delivery had passed over a week ago and the missus is tired and sick and no, she doesn’t want the damned oxygen tank, she wants the baby OUT.
I wanted to write three strong paragraphs on the brutality of labour. On the sheer evil that abounds labour pains. But I’m not worthy and my words would be insufficient. Labour is a phenomenon that men shouldn’t be allowed a commentary. It’s a horrid, ruthless, macabre pain that closely borders on the insane. The blood curdling screams that accompany it are drawn out and they thunder down the deserted corridors of the maternity ward, leaving an eerie echo in its wake. Labour is indescribable. Yes Jean, labour is nasty so go ahead and get preggies.
The Missus started having her labor pains at 10pm, by midnight I was ready to jump off the window and to my death. That whole hoopla they tell men in those classes about rubbing the small of her back is a sham. It doesn’t work; it was devised to stop men from leaving their laboring women to nip out for a smoke. At 4am she had gotten into a zone which I couldn’t follow her in; a zone bereft of neither grace nor inhibition. For the first time that night, I was scared….a bit.
At 6.30am her waters broke. They wheeled her in the theater to push. I wore those ridiculous theater gabs and a mask and followed her in lugging a camera and some smelling salts in case I passed out. The doctor was young. Young doctors make me restless. The midwives were much much older and that is always a consolation. As they prepped her up, the doctor turned to me and smiled reassuringly, “First time, eh?”
“First for her, fifth for me.” I said, he looked a bit puzzled.
“It’s a joke.” I sighed. Doctors!
Chin to chest, push! The doctor cried. She pushed. Chin to chest, push! She pushed. I’m ready with my camera. Chin to chest, push! The baby seems adamant to come out and I suspect it’s because she had already heard, over the grapevine, about the election violence. You wouldn’t blame her.
“She is crowning, I can see the head, anytime now!” the doctor said to me.
“Yeah right, you said that ten minutes ago!”I said and a nurse giggled. Finally some sense of humor!
On 11th Jan 2008, at 7.03am my little girl is born; 3.55kg and at 49cms in height. Here is the thing, I read how men recount crying after watching their babies born. I didn’t cry. I felt numb, mesmerized and spaced out. Most importantly I felt a rebirth going on within me. Watching the birth of your baby is quiet poignant and deeply humbling. Spiritual even. I urge every guy out there to start by making a woman preggies…yes, even you Pride. But I remember thinking that my baby looked strange, like a cast in a Star Trek movie. She didn’t look pretty at all and I almost told the doctor, “Er, I think you got the wrong baby, why you don’t you go back in and get the right kid out doc?”
And here is the thing, and I say this with a lot of love; infants are ugly when they are born. Their heads look like someone with a real big bum sat on them, their eyes are puffed out like they are nursing a hangie, and their skin peel off. I never saw an infant so beautiful I wanted to steal. I think in my life I have seen only two infants who I would have described as beautiful, one in Kampala and one back here. And I’ve seen many babies. But for their entire strange looks, babies have the most adorable small feet and fingers. Given a choice to watch Sakata (and I think those kids can dance) and look at an infant’s little toes and fingers whole day, I would choose the latter.
Babies also bring out the pretentiousness of people, of women to be precise. Women who come to visit the new mother in a hospital always coo breathlessly “Aww, she is sooo adorable, she is sooo beautiful!” Really? On the contrary men normally just show up to look at the baby to confirm the baby is not Indian or white then they shake your hand and mumble their congratulations and offer to get you wasted after. None of that fib on how hot the baby looks. A whole bunch of the misuses pals showed up at the hospital within a few hours of the baby’s arrival and you should have heard them go “Aww, she is so pretty!” And in my head I was thinking, “Aw come on, isn’t it too early to expose the baby to lies?”
Some even said, “Biko, she looks just like you.” and I wanted to laugh. Laugh because she was only 5hours old for chrissake, she could have looked like Zach Galifianakis or anyone else out there. Here is a mchongwano I heard on TV. “Ati vile ullizaliwa ullikuwa m’ugly mpaka incubator yako iliwekwa tint usishtuwa watoto wengine.” Hehehe…I found that too funny.
The formula for fatherhood has changed. At least with us,
the generation X you are in this generation if you can hum to a Shaba Ranks song). But our parenting skills are somehow informed by our childhood, or how we were fathered, innit? My old man, for instance, was a disciplinarian, a bookish kinda guy. He was literally the head of the house in statue and all, the buck stopped with him…or rather that’s what my mom made him believe. Hehehe.
My old man did many things right with us, many many things, but what he never did was to be our friend. Do you think that’s got anything to do with why I constantly have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee? Any psychologists out there? Anyway there was no for being friends with that guy, his standards were too high, his expectations unmoving. Fatherhood was a monarchy. But he wasn’t hostile; he was just too civil, too proper and officious. I would have loved him to crack jokes. You never got the urge to walk up to him and say, “Dad, there is this chick I met.” Oh no, he would have asked, “Was she a character in a book you are reading?”
Fatherhood back then was about command, about leadership. We obeyed implicitly and we didn’t even think of disobedience because he was 6’2’’ and well built. The first time my dad hugged me was when I graduated from campus. I was already a grown-ass man. It was very touching but it was also awkward. Now we do the shoulder thing because now we are men, at least he sees me as one.
And so I try re-define fatherhood for my daughter. I hug her constantly. I kiss her (sometimes amidst her protests) constantly. I tell her I love her daily. I touch her. I tell her she is gorgeous and even at that age you can tell her she loves to hear this. Women! I, like a whole bunch of guys out there, are trying to be more than fathers, we are trying to be dads. For me fatherhood is marked by a lot of insecurities; am I there enough? If I am is my presence helping in her positive adjustments? Am I good father? Who is a good father? Should I have not raised my voice? If I dropped dead today, will she ever have a recollection of me? Does she really love me? How much? Do you think it’s more than she loves the mom? Well, I sure as hell hope so! Hehe. But yes, you will never meet a more insecure father than me.
Last Monday we took Tamms to school. She looked dapper in her school uniform. Every kid at school was crying that day, crying for their mommas. Picture a roomful of mournful and howling children, it sounded like a funeral in Nyanza. Now, the missus is insanely attached to her and I knew she would cry after leaving her with total strangers for the first time since she was born. I was so sure she would cry.
So we get to school and Tamms starts crying after seeing all those kids cry. And when the time comes to hand her over to the teacher her mom does it in one swift motion and quickly turns on her heels and walks out of the door leaving the poor child bawling and kicking (brutal love of a mother she called it). I stand there, stunned, caught between staying for a little longer or follow her. Watching her cry like that touched me in ways that I won’t describe because my word count here is over. A tennis ball crawled to my throat. Tears stung at my eyes. I swear if I would blinked just once, I was going to tear, so I walked out like a fish; unblinking. Hell, I wasn’t going to be “the dad who cried louder than his daughter on the first day.”
I realize that my little girl’s life has now started and she will continue to cry. She will cry when she is betrayed. She will cry when she meets a boy she likes and who will break her heart. She will cry when nothing will seem to work in her life. She will cry when she realizes she made the wrong choices. She will cry when she is happy and joyous. She will cry when she misses a promotion. She will cry when she loves a man who doesn’t love her the way she wants to be loved. She will cry at her wedding, but not as hard as she will cry when I kick out one of her rubbish boyfriends from my house. But I pray she understands that quite often you have to cry in order to smile.