Last Moments with My Dad

MY LAST MOMENTS WITH MY FATHER In the year 1992, Senegal was, for the first time, the capital of the African football. The African nation football cup was taking place in Dakar and Ziguinchor. Everybody was very exciting to have the best players of the continent in Senegal and it may be the year to win the African cup for the first time. With all that excitement, I kind of forgot that my dad was very sick and he too wanted people to forget that he was seriously ill. It began, one cold night of December 1991, when my mother woke us up at 2:30 in the morning, very scared and confused. “You guys need to go get your uncle Yamar”, she said. “What happened?” my older brother asked. “Your dad is very sick and I don’t know what to do, here is 1000 franc, hurry up, go get your uncle and meet me at the hospital”, she replied. I did not hear the last thing she said because, in my mind, I was trying to remember the last time my dad was sick. Never, I guess. He was 65 years old and I never saw him or even heard him complain about being sick. At the hospital, it had been a very long time before they finally admitted him. They did not have an available bed for him, they said. In Africa people can died from a simple infection because of the lack of medical infrastructures. A week later, he was doing well and was released from the hospital. School had just started and I had to move to my aunt’s house, which was closer to my school. I was on my 2nd year in college and very anxious to finish my course because of my parents’ promise to send me to Europe after my graduation. Every weekend, I had to go home and spent some times with my dad. We talked about school but mostly football and the upcoming tournament. Just like everybody in the country, he was ready for it. Even though he could not go to the games, he had me retrieved an old TV that was in the repair shop. So he could put it in his room, to watch all the games. While we were having our one on one conversation,