Family Secret: My HIV Positive Father And The Women Who Love Him

HIV positive. That was a label my parents carried. HIV positive, I knew what is was, knew what it meant. I had learned about it in school as one of the diseases that can transmit through intercourse. HIV was manageable but incurable, the teacher said as she run through a very short but horrid history of the disease.

“Are you going to die?” I asked my mother, my voice laced with fear.

“No honey, of course not. We’ve had it for a long time, even before we had you, so it’s just a matter of discipline and care,” my mother replied.

Antiretroviral drugs had enabled my parents to birth my siblings and I without transferring the virus to us. Come on science!

My mother was the kind of woman who sat her children down and explained everything openly and honestly into detail. If it was age-appropriate, she would let you have every bit of information. She talked to me about womanhood, being a black person living in Italy, sex, love, heartbreaks, drugs, money and, HIV and STIs. And many more. The only thing I ever asked that she didn’t tell was how they got their HIV infection. She said she didn’t want me to know.

This particular conversation about HIV positive diagnosis, she wanted me to be aware they had it, and begin to carry some of the responsibility of ensuring my sibling and I stayed negative. After that talk, most of the rules I found weird in our household began to make sense to me; no sharing of sharp objects was a big deal in our home.

When my two younger siblings were of age, she had the same HIV talk with them, each with me present. And she stressed the importance of keeping it quiet, no telling friends or anyone. The only exceptions were medical doctors, they were allowed to know.

Mother said the stigma killed more than the disease itself. And if people knew, they would shun us and make us miserable. Mom was particularly emphatic about our relatives back in Ghana, they were not allowed to know anything about their HIV positive status under any circumstance.

True to her words, my parents didn’t die. They diligently took their medicines and took care of themselves. After some years, the cocktail of meds became a single pill and eventually a bi-monthly injection. Mom was the HIV management police, she made sure my father went to his appointments and took his meds. Mom was the glue and anchor of the family, she made sure we all stayed and toed the line, my father included.

My parents’ marriage has always been a yardstick for me. It was quite evident they loved and respected each other. My father is a provider and protector. And my dear mom was the heart and soul of that union.

Their love survived an HIV positive diagnosis, survived three children, but then COVID-19 hit. Mom could manage HIV alone, but when HIV and COVID combined, she fought hard, but she lost. I was thirty-two, I lost my mother. And my father snapped!

When she died, my father wailed like a child. For days, he shook with sobs. What killed him the most was that he couldn’t even bury her with dignity. She was cremated, we had no control, Bergamo, the province we lived in was in a public health crisis and they did what they had to do.

Eventually the sobbing gave way to silence, he retreated into someplace we could hardly reach to pull him out. Then the silence turned into rage. And when travel restrictions were lifted, the rage gave way to wanderlust. He retired and decided to go see the world. My parents had lived in Italy for a long time and made a great life for themselves. We lived in great neighborhoods, attended private schools, and they built huge mansions in our home country Ghana, some of which they leased out. So it was easy for Dad to retire, and I was happy he was finally out of his funk. His first destination was Ghana, home. It made sense to me that he would go there.

I was happy, until my youngest brother followed my father to Ghana this past Christmas. He text me one day, a simple but loaded message, “Dad is spreading HIV to young girls. Younger than you. Seventh night at home and the fourth girl just entered his quarters.”

What? My Daddy? My gentle, loving, kind, smart Daddy?

We have a vacation house in Ghana, a suburb called East Legon. Mom personally decorated that house to her taste.That house, still smells of her. The east wing of the home is a house within itself, and that was my parents’ quarters. That is where my Dad was bringing little the girls, some younger than his last child.

I booked a flight and followed suit to Ghana. When my Dad picked me up from the airport, his words were, “I know your big mouthed brother has told you a lot, remember you are not your mother, don’t try to tell me how to live.”

Misskorang, when my mother died, my father’s conscience followed her to the grave. My own eyes have seen the children he’s been sleeping with. My brother didn’t lie, I am older than most. University students, career women, a couple of pseudo celebrities, and those in-between; they are dazzled by the Mercedes Benz and BMWs. The sight of a fit, salt and peppered older man with some expendable income, and common sense evaporates from their brains. They bring their friends to meet their man, to lounge at the pool and sip mimosas.

I watch them and pity them. Can you believe on of those little cows tried to send me on an errand? “Can you get me juice from the kitchen,” she said. That little she-dog, fancied herself my step-mother.

I confronted my father, reminding him of his HIV status, his answer was, “What I do with my penis is none of your business.”

I talked to his oldest sister, my aunt, to get him to stop and find one woman to share his life with. Her answer was, “What do you expect of a rich widower? When he gets it out of his system, he will stop.”

Of course she doesn’t know about her brother’s HIV diagnosis, so I don’t blame her. But I know and it bothers me.I don’t think my Dad is disclosing his HIV status to these women, neither do i know if he’s protecting himself and them.

What I do know is my father is HIV positive and young girls are flocking to him like hummingbirds to nectar.

Editor’s Note: I know it is a crime to knowingly transmit diseases in most countries. But we don’t know your father is committing a crime, because he may be sleeping with multiple young women, but he may not be transmitting the disease to them. There are some problems in this life we just have to contend with not having the tools to solve. I suggest you go on and live your life as your father very obviously is living his.Since you have told him your piece with that confrontation, your conscience should has done its job!

**Names of places were left intact at contributor’s request.