Fiction: Raising another man’s child (a dad’s confession)

As the rest of the family and friends were celebrating our son’s 18th birthday, I noticed his mother was only physically present, something was eating her up! Little did I know she had promised herself to drop the bombshell on our son’s 18th birthday. Now that the time had come, she was shaking like a leaf. “Honey, I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I hope you find it in your heart to understand and forgive me, I wanted Ronnie to have the best life.” “What do you mean? What are you trying to say?” I demanded. For a minute I thought she was going to tell me she had cancer or some other ugly disease, for she was looking deathly pale and shaking like a wind blown refugee.“For 18 years I’ve been trying to come up with a simple, less hurting way to say this, but in vain! There’s no easy way to say this, honey, Ronnie is not your son!” A part from onions, few things can make a true African man shed tears, at first it didn’t sink in me, I laughed thinking it was a bad joke, but the look in her eyes confirmed the gravity of the matter. That night I shamelessly wailed like a baby. I didn’t know what to think! Ronnie was my son; I was there when he was born. I had great plans for him, he was in my will, and does that mean I don’t have a son? What am I going to tell my family and friends? I never felt so empty and betrayed in my whole life! I felt like my heart was sliced out with a blunt spoon. She must have told Ronnie that same night for in the morning he did a great job of avoiding me. Poor boy was more troubled than I was, but when I thought about how his mum had lived with this giant secret for eighteen years, the anger I had melted and was replaced by sympathy. As for Ronnie, it’s not his fault. He is innocent and deserving of all the love he can get. He may not have my genes, but after living each day with us and having raised him, I have no doubt that he picked up a lot of my characteristics. He is not my blood but he is mine. Since that night, I have great respect for any man who becomes a stepfather (knowingly) and is willing to raise another man’s child, but I also do not blame a man for not wanting to take responsibility for another man’s child. It takes a good man to love his own kids but when another man can love someone else’s kid that is a man with a bigger heart, that including parents who adopt. Today my family is still glued together; I pardoned my wife and I still love her with all my heart, as for Ronnie, he now knows his biological father. Though his father is now a tycoon, Ronnie decided to stay with us. Ends