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After
publishing the first issue concerning paternity controversy,read here, I got a collection
of seven related reports. Rather than share it as a diary, I decided to share
each one at a time so that I will not have to take out any important
information from these real-life bitter
experiences that the victims want other people to learn from.
The congratulatory message that I received in my e-mail box changed my life beyond what I could ever have imagined. I screamed from the bedroom to the living room calling my wife’s attention to the message that would change our lives forever. A multinational company has just offered me a job and the package was ‘juicy’. Besides the ‘fat’ pay packet, they also offered me a brand new car, a befitting housing allowance and a health insurance to cover my family of four.
My daughters aged six and three years respectively,
are the love of my life. Even when I did not have a good-paying job, I did
everything that I could to make them comfortable. They loved me to the point of
envy from my wife, but ‘who cares’, I always asked jokingly each time she
complained of not getting my full attention like I give to ‘my angels’.
Dragging my wife to see the message for herself in my
‘inbox’, we hugged each other and thanked God. With my wife’s support, I
started putting together my documents as requested by the office. I was to see
the Human Resources Manager by 9am the next day. Done with all that I needed
for the morning, we had dinner. While the children went to bed, my wife and I
planned for our new life. We had managed our little financial resources all
these seven years of our married life, and this was the time to enjoy
ourselves.
The next day at the office, I was directed to the
staff hospital where my blood sample was taken for some tests. My daughters
were also required to do the test, so they had to come around on the second
day. I started work immediately and all was going on well until two weeks later
when the doctor at our staff hospital called me to come for our test results. I
noticed that the doctor didn’t look ‘so cool’ like I noticed him to be the
first time. My heart raced through several thoughts when he asked me to sit
down for some chat.
Even though I looked at the doctor helplessly like a
child in need of some assurance, he brought out my family file and said the
shrilling words “ the test results show that your daughters are not your
biological children, did you adopt them?” I didn’t understand what the doctor
was saying until I recovered from what I though was a ‘break in transmission.’
I was soaked in my sweat like someone beaten by the rain.
The doctor calmed me down and explained everything to
me; he said that ‘my daughters’ had the same DNA, but that it was different
from mine. It simply meant that it was a calculated act. I married my wife
following the due process of traditional marriage, the Court Registry marriage
and a Church wedding. I have never experienced failure with my male organ, so I
was speechless.
It was a matter beyond my wife and I, as the doctor
advised me to come with at least a member each from our families for a first-
hand explanation to them. It was the end of work for me that day; my body felt
heavy and my head pounded like there was a wrestling competition going on
inside there. My heart ‘bled profusely’ as I made my way back home.
I pictured the faces of ‘my angels’; their thin and
sharp voices shouting ‘daddy! daddy!’ echoed in my head. I tried to picture a
world without them, but it was tough. These girls have only known one daddy,
which is me, and I have only known them as mine. They both learned drumming
using my chest and stomach as their rehearsal instrument. I stole some laughter
as I remembered how the three year old grabbed my breast to suck from it. She
was about 10 months old then and couldn’t wait for her mom to change from her
outing wear before coming to breast feed her. I remembered several other times
and things we did together. I did not find any crack on the wall, so it was
difficult to imagine how my wife must have been keeping a sexual relationship
with another man without my suspicion.
It was hard, but I remained brave. I told my brother,
and my wife’s sister what was on ground, and that the doctor needed to see us.
My wife could not answer any of the questions that I asked her. At the doctor’s
the next day, in presence of our family members, the doctor explained the same
thing he had told me and they looked perplexed. She couldn’t say who her lover
was, neither could she say that I was not ‘man enough’ to father children.
The only decision
reached after the family meeting that evening was that she should leave
my house with ‘her children’. It was too disgraceful and painful to care to
know who the biological father was, but for the sake of the innocent children I
had to give out money for them to get an apartment. That night, I locked myself
in the room and wept for my stupidity. I heard the children cry for daddy, but
there was no reply to them. I insisted she left the house with the children the
next day, even if to her sister’s place until she got a place for them because
I could not stand the sight of the children as belonging to someone else.
Night after night, and during the days at work, I
suffered depression and remained traumatized. I wondered why my wife decided to
act such a script without worrying about the lives that could be destroyed. My
family wants me to move on with life fast, but how easy would it be for me to
trust another woman?