This is a story about a really ordinary girl. Her name is Lolo, and for a long time, she identified as Fatherless.

You may be able to relate to Lolo.

She has only ever seen her father less than 10 times in her entire life. All these were really brief non-verbal encounters where she was struck dumb, not knowing what to do or how to act around this strange being she was supposed to call father.

Lolo has passed by him on the street a couple of times, too. How did she know, you may ask? Some random day, she ran into some relative who said, “Oh, I just met your father,” and pointed to the back of his head. Of course, this is a questionable relative. Can we really trust them???

Like Lolo, as a child, you may have dreamt of living with your father, and that one day, he will come and just love you. It’s like one of those recurring dreams that always happen in a familiar place from your childhood. Anyway,

Guess what????? Lolo knows a real-life girl whose father actually came back for her. Yeeessss. For real!!!! FOR REAAALLLL!!!!! She went to live with him, and they lived happily ever after. Not psych. Reeeeeaaaaal real life.

In Lolo’s real life, though, she has been through a version of the phases of grief.

Denial.

At the age of 5, on one of his brief visits, her father promised to come and take her for ice cream. Lolo would ask her mother every day for years when he would come for her. Every day, she would wait. Guys! It’s been 30 years.

Anger.

This misguided phase was at her mother, who loved and raised Lolo when said father never kept his promise. How was dear Mother responsible? Lolo didn’t know; but she needed someone to blame, so… for years, she and mummy dearest had a rocky, hostile sort of relationship… until…

But first wait…. there was also that lady at the NIRA office who refused to take Lolo’s documents because she didn’t have a copy of her father’s ID. Lolo told her to go look for him, herself if she really wanted his ID. You will be happy to know that after that statement, Lolo’s documents were accepted without any resistance. Then…

Acceptance/Realisation.

After years of hoping, Lolo woke up one day and realised that all this time, she had been surrounded by people who had been taking her for ice cream. She had never seen it. Uncle BenJack who walked most evenings with her, when she went to visit, Laura and Larry’s dad who took her and her cousins to Sheraton hotel for lunch, Uncle Robson who taught her gave her a love for photography, her amazing sisters who made sure lolo was in school and had everything she needed, cousins that babysat and played with Lolo, extravagantly lovely aunties who sent gifts for any and no reason.

Those were the people who loved her… who had fathered her.

But, like a good movie plot twist, her father showed up one last time promising the world—read: hosting Lolo’s kwanjula and walking her down the aisle at her wedding. (Pretty specific, right?)

As with any Ugandan wedding, there was a kerfuffle (see English) amongst the relatives. Why was this absentee father taking credit for all the work they had put in? Why did he deserve an assortment of expensive kanzus and sacks of sugar, among other things?????? Father, guilty as a guilty person, lol, ran for his life and disappeared back into his not-so-mysterious-anymore, no-one-cares life.

Freedom/Release

And… Lolo. She got married, knowing she had a group of people that raised, loved, and were ready to fight for her.

Knowing her father would have been great, but knowing without a shadow of doubt that she was Wanted. Loved. WANTED. That was the real real real prize.