Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

POEM: A CONVERSATION WITH MY FATHER!

Today, I am going to share a poem I wrote and published about my late father, the poem is titled: “A conversation with my Father”.

“Kum Apem A. Apem Beba”

That is the exact Asante proverb, I said while speaking to my papa

translated from our Asante Twi, those words mean “Kill a thousand and a thousand more will come.”

Those are the exact words that our ancestors spoke when they went to war with the British Empire and won in 1823

So what that means to me is when I was a child and witnessed you get shot, while closing our family’s shop

That was in one of Detroit’s roughest spots

Yet you still went to work the next day

The only thing left for me to say, was that Asante warrior blood, is not just something that was passed down in our family DNA

But a code you actually live by day to day

As my father started to beam and smile at his proud son

I asked him to stay sitting with me, I will be finished in a little while

He said: o.k. Nana

Which is a word given to kings, Queens and Elders

But he calls me Nana, because I am named after my mama’s papa

I said “ you know what papa?”

Mama reminds me of the Asante Warrior Queen mother Yaa Asantewaa, who led the Asante Kingdom In a War Against British colonialism

I mean they both are strong beautiful queens who would go to war to protect their family

My father looked at me and smiled, giggled and kissed me on the cheek and said: Yes son I agree.

So why in the hell papa do you verbally demean and sometimes physically abuse mama, if she is supposed to be your queen?

My father knew there was nothing he could say to justify his sometimes explosive acts of violence

So, he said nothing and just looked at me very sad and silent!

Speech Intro:

As a kid like a lot of kids who grew up with an alpha-male and charismatic father in the house, I worshipped my father. To me he was a black Superman, an African Hercules, I seriously believed there was no one or nothing on earth he could not defeat if he had to.

I remember being next to him when he got shot in his head closing our family’s store in an extremely dangerous area of Detroit. A city he came to as an immigrant from Ghana, West Africa, to look for a better life for his family.

His idea of the American Dream was to open several liquor stores, all over Detroit and beyond, that we locally call “Party Stores”, that my father intended for my brother and I to inherit.

At one of those stores, I remember my mom walking in one day, it was after school, so my brother and I were in the store stocking shelves, when my mother walked in after her work, looking beat up and bruised like she just went 9 rounds with Mike Tyson.

She claimed she had gotten robbed, I believed her immediately, I had no reason not to.

At that time as an adolescent, I had seen another one of our family stores get burnt down to the ground, I had seen my father get shot and our family’s home get shot up after being mistaken for our drug dealing neighbor’s home. And at this time, Detroit was one of the most dangerous cities in America, if not the murder capital.

It would be years before I discovered my mother was not robbed and that she was beaten by my father after a hostile argument about his many affairs and financial issues. I would find out even though my father was far more verbally abusive than physically, there would be a few times in my teen years I would have to pull him off my mom. A  few times I almost came to bloody blows with the man whose blood coursed through my veins; if it was not for my mother’s interventions, there is a good chance that one of us would of killed the other one.

I would go on to hate my father for years until I discovered that he was suffering for years with depression and suicidal thoughts, dementia and he was also dealing with various other mental health issues.

The hate I had for him would soon turn into a deep sadness and for the rest of his life, until his death last year we shared an improved relationship.

Fast forward two decades, I get a call from a “loved one”, late in the night. Despite the fact he works in law enforcement, he calls me for advice. He tells me his wife just snapped and battered him and their daughter.

I tell him to call the cops. Even though he knows he should, it takes me a while to convince him, he does not want to breakup his family and he does not want it to cost his wife her job.

Finally after his 5 year old daughter also tells him to please call the cops on his wife and her mom; who had this point had stormed out of the house, he eventually calls the cops.

After she finally was arrested a couple dayd, it would be discovered that she had stopped taking her anti-depressants medications, which made her go crazier than a cat on catnip.

Since them his wife has been taking better care of her mental health and they are now a relatively stable family.

Thesis:

You should learn that domestic violence is a lot more complicated than we’ve been led to believe.

What:

Like the old saying goes: Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

Yes, people who commit domestic violence must be punished, but within that punishment, they must also be given the proper psychological treatment.

Why:

Too much do we as a society look to label people for life as evil and bad, without looking to see what they are going through to make them act that way.

We have to keep in mind that hurt people hurt people.