Wolf pack
My mother always told me when
I was growing up not to look for good or evil by what it looked like, but by
its fruit. I believe our generation in Zimbabwe was the second to experience a
wicked phenomenon that had already swept across Europe and certain parts of
Asia and the America’s over the last century. The sickness itself infected us
during the colonial era with their arrival for such a sickness had never
existed among our peoples and then again it might just have being a matter of
time, the destruction of the traditional family unit which was our strong hold
and our cultural values which were our force field against the attack, infected
and unknown, we started to show clear symptoms just before the revolutionary/
anticolonial wars, and “it” ultimately became a mutating virus at independence,
which reflected in the era’s value systems changes, some we choose our self
some imposed on us ,it doesn’t matter at the end of the day the people were
sick, but like any strong people some of us developed an immune system a new way of thinking and it was war, we were
drawn into a dog fight with no rules of engagement on either side. The sickness
I speak of and the fruit we became is “the fatherless generation” the strange
fruit destine in the future at one point or another to destroy each other. I
think we are doing better than the rest of the world because of our immune
system which would be eons of Culture that stems back to beginning of the world
itself, well.. well it simply refused to lie down and die, “it” our immune
system new well the only thing constant in life was change and although it was
not ready for the viciousness of the attack, it managed to simplify itself
because it knew after watching over the ages the simpler the organism the
better its chance of survival and planted this seed in some of us and somehow we
survived, but do not be fooled many us are still infected. I call it the
disconnect theory; I think in this era we live in now 2013 the greatest two
weapons of the enemy are fatherlessness and the ignorant. I don’t think society
fully comprehends how important it is for children both boys and girls to have
their father engaged in their lives. The enemy figured out if he could remove
the father figure from the home, be it physically emotionally mentally
financially and so on, a direct disconnect in the relationship between Man
(meaning humanity regardless of sex) and god would be formed and moral
decadence would reign, and if you think I am wrong just take a look at the
state of the world, wars sparked out of greed and stupidity/pride, abuse of
women at an all-time high, very little reverence for a life, the number of men
in prisons and the number of men who have changed their sexual persuasion, the
enemy has attacked our would be fathers and left the definition of masculinity
in tatters, need more convincing maybe turn on the news listen for 5 minutes
and cringe, profits and not prophets the lord’s prayer or novena does not start with our god or our lord it
starts with “our father” and some things will never change. We are made in
god’s image as 3 part beings, mind (soul), body and spirit, just as god is
Father, son and Holy Spirit. In this age even among the so called Christians,
we can accept Jesus easily as saviour and brethren, the holy spirit as the
comforter the soft side of or as some have argued the feminine side of god ,
but we tend to reject god the father, because we have never felt our earthly
fathers love and many who did have fathers growing up dealt with infected angry
broken abusive and a small group felt the real love, and the way we relate to
god is the same way we relate to him (our earthly father) and there is an anger
resentment, un-forgiveness and rebellion against authority in any form, serial
time stealers and the most precious thing we possess in this life is time, life
its self is time (Sadness in my voice) and the enemy achieved his goal … (laugh
with a hint of madness) to steal cheat
and destroy. And by the time you look up and realize what happened, it will be
time up.
They say self-sacrifice produces love and self-preservation selfishness
but in our case it was the sacrifice that produced the self-preservation which
allowed us to defy the laws of nature and retain our sanity where others would of lost their minds, it become a
strange and powerful thing (self-preservation- sacrifice), it had the strangest
capacity to draw the most unlikely of characters together, if Tupac was alive
he would say it allowed us to breathe
fresh air and walk with no feet, and still manage to reflect the inner
rose beauty god blesses all his children with. They also say you can’t choose your family but I
would also beg to differ some times its not blood you share its pain love and
the most painful and confusing hope, meet the Wolf pack my family away from
family, drawn together by our brokenness, issues and the
complexities/dispositions we faced in our homes and school environment we were
it, bonds formed in fire and a place of
no judgement, no need for understanding just acceptance and a chance to
sit down and breathe in all the crazy and busy of the world, some form of
warmth in the cold, and a method maybe reason behind the madness we face in our
private silence, and a chance for us to slow time down while moving at high speed and figure it out,
or at least attempt to figure it out, the who I am, “ who the me is?”, the real me not your expectations,
not my adaptations for your acceptance or the type casts life seemed to have
thrown us into. Wolf pack had 3 things in common:
1 we were either the smartest
or the fastest of our age group extremely gifted and creative, whether it for
the good or the unscrupulous, broken early in what I call spiritual war fare or
as my father would say “baptism by fire”. Simply trying to figure how to make
our gifts a blessing and not a curse .
2 We all had parent issues either the vicariousness of how they
lived through us which caused us to question our true dream, purpose and god
given instinct. In some cases to much guidance and in other cases not enough…
or our parents were absent physically mentally or emotionally, caught in their
own pain or a strange but real form of narcissism (they seemed completely
unaware) as a result we had developed distinct and certain disposition
incubated by a “do as I say not as I do” home environment which often fuelled a
silent rebellion, and the guerrilla warfare was on (the collateral damage or
innocence most of the time)
3 Last but not we become little people who all couldn’t wait to grow
up, unfortunately we didn’t know what we were asking for until we got their
then we wanted to grow down, and with that we made one promise that the “sins
of the fathers would not visit our sons” and we shed the skin of conformity in
the hope of building a new legacy a brighter tomorrow.
It would be rude for me to start with anybody
else other than myself in the Wolf pack family. My real names Tapfuma Gerald
Munengami but everybody calls me Ta or Storm as far back I can recall, “he who
takes no shape and has no form completely unpredictable and answerable only
unto God” as far back as I am aware even in the womb I posed a strength and a
wisdom that were not mine untamed honest and raw right there at my fingertips
waiting for a life time to master, but for most of it people called me Storm
because they said I was crazy posed nemangoromera (a conflicted spirit) and my
totem Dziva translated to water or lake so the name made sense. Back in the day
I was a fast runner, crazy maybe I don’t know? Misunderstood maybe nah definitely?
Hence the name Storm, I didn’t say much back then, and when I did people didn’t
real understand me figuratively not literally, I didn’t use words that much
back then, even though I somehow knew my vocation would be around words and
writing, I understood their power (the wisdom that wasn’t mine) and approached them
(words that is) with a reverence hence my silence while we got to know each
other better. I have had side burns since I was about 10 years old I rocked
Afro just like father pure swagga and from the age of seven I had silver hair
growing in my head. My disposition if you can call it that was a silence that
scared people that started at the tragic loss of my father at age 7. I watched
as liver sclerosis took him home to the other father, slowly and painfully
piece by piece the cape was ripped from the back of my hero, the dust settled on the boots and the
shine faded and slowly helplessly I watched not a single tear in my
eyes, my hero became mortal, the legend was lost in time, the myth shattered
and the fairy tale crumbled not one tear in my eye, I didn’t even cry at the
funeral not for lack of understanding of what was going on, I did my crying on
the inside I needed to be strong for my mother she was shattered so to were my
elder brother and sister, two hero’s stolen by one stone the strength that
wasn’t mine stood up, the little boy died and the shadow of a man started
walking blind, I wish I had cried back then it would of saved me a lot pain and
issues as a young adult, like the inspiration to blues song yet to be written I
had all this pain gnawing at my soul in un-cried tears for so long helping
design my psycho. Satan had drawn me into a dog fight early and I am still
swinging to this day. After I turned 7 life had found innovative ways to strip
me of my innocence and test my sanity, I think anybody who has grown up in
single parent house hold knows that you sacrifice your own child hood because
you have to grow up faster than your counterparts if you want to survive, if
you have any hope of living your purpose or seeing your dream breathe because
that all you have on cold and lonely nights dreams, and you have no intention
of being trapped as a child in your head… in a grown body for the rest of your
life (a slight pain at the memory because I see them all the time “peter pans”
I mean boys in grown bodies trapped by a pain from the past). In this
environment you either become the issue or try and help out around the house to
deal with issues. I loved my mom brother and sister dearly so I tried to do the
latter but things don’t always go to plan and sometimes I found myself being
the issue as I wrestled with my un-cried tears my pain had grown roots and they
ran deep. While other kids are playing with toys and doing normal kids’ stuff I
was doing chores around the house changing lights and fuses, running errands I
even learnt to manage money early by going to the post office to pay bills and
doing grocery it would explain the hustle latter on in my life, don’t get me
wrong I am not complaining it’s just that you felt a ting when your friend’s
fathers were taking them fishing or something, you watch them drive off on
Saturday morning and somewhere in your head a voice said “what about me?” and
they would be sharing how great it was on Monday morning, it was a strange
place to be emotionally a deep internal reflection, you would never wish this
pain this void on someone else but couldn’t help but feel some morbid sense
of jealously and misguided anger, even
stuff as simple as changing tires you have to figure it out on your own, my mom
taught me how to do it because these are basic man life skills every man should
have (surprisingly they don’t), but it just didn’t feel the same as when I
watched my friends with their fathers there was an affirmation they seemed to get that my mom could
not give me and my inner writer recognized it but I was grateful at her
efforts, Amai (mother) was real with me
she taught me a lot basic man skills and I grateful today because it
sets me apart from many men, mama raised nothing but soldier(laughing) that’s
what she used to say anyway. The best way I can explain it is when your father
is absent while you become a man, it’s like being lost in a forest with no
campus and you look up the stars because inherently you know the directions are
up there somewhere and you try to learn how to read them the signs as fast and
as safe as possible (not going to happen not without a guide) but because you
don’t have any life experience often you find yourself lost and while your lost
life is happening and I forgot to mention that in this forest there are all
kinds of beast hunting and you’re the prey, so you either you give up and get eaten even though your
alive in the flesh or learn faster to trust your instincts and go hard..
and use the scars lots of scars reminders of lessons learnt to navigate
through the forest and you have to grow a thick skin or kill the soft inside
you, the problems along the way if you
make it (may god keep and bless those who committed suicide on the path to
masculinity) you will make mistakes people and society, I learnt the hard way
trust me I have the scars to prove it , will try and define you based on those
mistakes and mess with your head “little boy little girl let me in, not by
hairs on my chinny chin chin” and so the lines between night mare and fairy tale get blurred but life keeps
happening and if you’re not careful time is being stolen the best days of your life, the beasts in the
forest are no respecters of age they
just want you to be a child in your head so you can’t eat at the master table
the grown bread the good stuff life offers. The Second problem in a single
parent house hold is discipline the lack of it or way too much of it.
Unfortunately for me my mother choose the path of tough love in the absence of
a man in the house to balance us out, translated for the less astute in the language of single parents tough love =
ass whoop(laughing). Although I thank my mother for every beating I received
back then lest I might be dead cause I was foolish and that’s the truth,
some of those beatings crossed the border line of abuse not only in intensity
but many beatings were trivial to me, they felt more like venting than the
scars of love, I remember more than one ass whooping I received that convinced me that I was adopted despite
that fact my facial features gave evidence to the contrary (laughing in
retrospect), strangely enough I remember being sick and that same one woman
holding me all night praying and crying for my survival and a piece of
hero’s fallen cap were sawn back on.
That same woman who worked 2 jobs and ran a business to make sure we never went
without because she had made a promise to my father that we would all go to
university and get good educations, it is here I was introduced to the school
master called “life” which started to explain to me the importance of keeping
your word be it marriage vows or a simple promise. I remember massaging mama’s
swollen ankles and the writer deep inside of me even then said “take a good
look, this is what love looks like”, as my hands tried to chase away her pain
and my mind tried comprehend my own confusion, life as a school master
unknowing let me know that real love doesn’t look like what we think it does
and if you look for it in the romantics’, fairy tale and emotions you will miss
it altogether you need to look for those swollen ankles sleepless nights those
calloused palms. The same woman who
would tear that ass up would kill anything breathing or dead who laid a hand on
me, that tough love phase was confusing in retrospect when you’re a child all
you wants a hug you want love more than stuff more than money, it doesn’t quite
make sense to you lost and confused trying to be brave…it pushed boundaries but
I needed it or I wouldn’t be me today. It is from this woman I call my mother I
learnt a stomach turning, shoulder crushing life changing work ethic which
guides me to this day even if it awoke in me late and some people call it the
grind! And that’s about me for now. Oh wait I also learnt to pray very
differently from my counter parts and hence my controversial relationship with
god was sealed, when your mother is tired all the time and she might have had a
drink to self-medicate the pain of life ( her lover is not there to take her
pain away in waiting arms and banter it only now that I understand) and drives
home, and she is all that you have in the world you don’t pray a 2 minute
prayer, nor for frivolous things, that prayers is on fire you live on your
knees and the prayers are so deep no words are needed and you can feel the
angels wings carry each word from souls lips to god himself “a cold and broken amen”. Last but not least
often when you grow up in a single parent house you vicarious loose both
parents, one physically and the other to the business of the world it’s not
their fault the parent unknowing becomes a provider and less of a parent but
they are doing their best… emotional drained when they get home so even if they
are there they are not and with a kiss and smile I thank my Mama for her
sacrifice I understand now. Wolf pack Lonely nights when we howled at the moon
literally just to feel something and let go of the anguish as silly as it
seemed it worked, and so the wolf pack was originally made of 5 little people
not so little now (laughing) and an addition 4 latter, we had known each I think
since we were 5-6 years old or earlier, 1 girl 4 boys. Well you already know my
story now meet the family starting with our first lady.
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