To be born is by privilege and grace, to stay alive and afloat is by GOD’s will and Human decision to take each and every day the right steps to stay strong and healthy, was he convinced. Where to be born was not up to a Human itself, but by destiny, no doubt for him about that as well. Destiny is not supposed to be left to uncertainty but is part of Human responsibility to justify life given; when no longer willing or able to carry out the responsibility, life to have needs to be taken away and given to someone else to follow it up into a better future to set family and society curses aside to overcome them and live life in a better future.
He knew this simple truth so well deep in his soul and yet, standing before the grey door to his Father’s Apartment, made him shack. He had not come for a normal visit, it was a visit to take control about his fate; it was the determination to take from life what life had promised him but humans had failed to give to him. In his heart it was like being born again into his future.
His head down, he touched the door handle, stopped for a moment seeing his Father before his eyes in his chair sitting, white curly hair, cut short, his hands skinny with no fat from fried Plantain and Fufu, eyes directed towards the past and promises made plenty to his people and the more than sixty years of suffering in Paradise. He closed his eyes, his heart stopped for a few seconds, when he was feeling his heart beat again and blood pressure pumping against his brain wanting to burst his head and mind, he took a deep breath, pushed down the door handle, opened the old door wide to see his Father sitting in his usual place. With upright head did he enter the room that was dipped in grey light, which had forced its way into the small room from under the big Mango tree standing outside in the courtyard.
“You want me to die here in Amakom or where?” tears of despair run along his nose and lips all the way down to his neck, touched his washed out light blue t-shirt to be stopped by the textile not washed for days. His face looked grim, disappointed, in his heart was anger, frustration, regret about years lost in Ghana with suffering for no reason at all. He felt his brain filled with thoughts chasing each other, fighting over his future and the way out of his misery. In his eyes was hope to be seen, hope and conviction to have a right, a human right, to live on earth a good life in dignity. Around him the atmosphere was grey fog covering him like a coat of heaviness, with light somewhere outside his emotional zone to brighten up his life.
“You will not die, you are still young and life is ahead of you!” tried the Father to give his son comfort while knowing his words would have no chance to touch the heart and soul of someone that indeed had a right to live a life as GOD had created him and his country for. He looked down to the floor shaking in his heart, bringing out all his strength to control himself. His wife, he knew so well, would cry and cry as if a funeral would take place, but she was at the market shopping.
“What life ahead?”
“There is always a way out of misery, my son. Think of a good woman that you will marry, a woman that one day will give you children…,” did Gerald Owusu try his best to make his son stay. In a flashback his memory remembered the struggles and sacrifices he and other had to make for the Independence of Ghana and the promise made by their first President, when the Black Man is free indeed at long last, he can manage his own affairs. He remembered so well the years past in which Generation after Generation lost their future and hope of a better life being cheated upon by their Leaders not only in Ghana, but across all of Africa and he knew, the situation is getting worse; more economic Migrants are leaving their families behind and their countries which GOD had mandated them to work for and prosper in.
His heart dragged him down making him look older than he was as poverty is a visible illness. Only in happiness someone can live a strong, healthy and powerful life in grace, which is what he knew so well having come a long way in understanding wisdom of life. The room around him was filled with old broken furniture inherited from his late father, a hugh fridge from Liebherr, Germany made, robust, serving him well all those years with no problem while the air was damp as it had rained the night before and water had climbed up the walls, taken days before they would dry out again to clear the air for them and only let the dry heat make them sweat as the broken down fan, hanging loose from the ceiling, had failed its service for some years.
“Which woman will ever marry me, Father?…Which woman will ever marry a poor man that has nothing to offer, no food to buy, to chance to find a job, no small land to grow the basic food needed…which woman, Father, tell me…which woman?” he shouted angry at his Father that had gotten old over the years in poverty with no reason of his own caused knowing in his heart that only the chance of life was making him a Ghanaian in Africa and not a German in Europe. It was nobody’s fault that he was born and where; it was a decision from GOD as for him every life counts that was what he knew only and believed in all his life, the source of energy to go through the many challenges in life he had to endure.
“Father,” run Peter Owusu up and down the small living-room in which all four children of his parents were born in and had to live and sleep side by side,” understand me, I am a Human like all other humans out there,” he turned around himself stretching out is arms pointing in all directions,” I have a right to live and no one in this country has a right to take my right to live from me. I can only see darkness in Kumasi, in Ghana and Africa. The bright sunlight is over there,” he pointed towards Europe on the shading away old World Map, once given by the Family’s Pastor for Christmas, hanging next to the only window of the room like a calling to look beyond the enclosure of their existence and mind. “What right do these people in Europe have that I do not have? They are not better people than us, they are only different. And I…listen carefully what I have to tell you,” he posted himself hin front of his Father with his right hand pointing at the old man that had raised him with his sweat and tears in years past,” I have a right to live a life like them, and that is where I will go to get it as long as here in Ghana nobody cares for me or gives me the chance to live a life in dignity away from shame.”
“But my son,” tried Gerald Owusu to stop him, grabbing his outstretched arm wanting to pull him closer to the chair he was sitting in to find stability in the turmoil the high emotions of his son cause him and lamented, “you cannot leave me alone here in the worries of day and night how you can possibly make it through the Sahara desert to reach the Coast of Africa and then safely make the crossing into Europe. You do not know what will happen there, maybe you will fall into the hands of Human Trafficker, be killed or have to steal in order to survive in Europe. The journey is too dangerous.”
Peter Owusu came down, sat before his Father on the naked concrete floor in the rented small Apartment for which the family did not know how to raise the next advance for three years to come. He looked into the saddened eyes of his Father, someone he had never seen crying in pain. For a few moments of inner reflection he kept silent. Than he spoke out in quite tone of a certain kind to tell someone that for a happy future someone must make sacrifices and said: “I love you so much, you know it, Father, but I also love my life and take now full responsivity for it. You have raised me in all those years past and I am so grateful for it. Now it is time to move on in life and get on my road to destiny. Kumasi and Africa can no longer provide for all of us here in the country; so many of us have to go and find our happiness in another continent.”