David and his Father
David Mathurin (1999). Yaco Batey, Km. 22, Duarte Highway. He is in the 10th grade in high school (old curriculum). He is not married and has no children. He does not work and still does not have his national identity and electoral card.
One afternoon, in a small rural village of a remote city, where technology has not yet set foot, in a neighborhood like all the others but with some hardships, two young people meet each other and fall in love. The girl’s parents disapprove of the relationship, but even then, the young man finds a way to see her through a cousin of hers. One day they agree to meet at a hidden site, at that moment they let love and passion take them away, and they make a mistake, because they are not ready to have a baby.
The fruit of that relationship becomes a human being who is to be named David Mathurin. The nine months of the pregnancy go by, the child they anxiously waited for is born, but as time goes by, the love David’s parents feel for each other withers, David’s parents’ life is now a life of trouble and arguments. They decide to break up.
After David’s parents separate, David falls ill. David’s father tries every single way to search for a cure to fight his son’s illness. David’s father decides to go to his ex-wife and ask her for help so that –between the two of them—they may find a cure for the illness affecting David, the child they had.
But she does not give too much attention to her ex-husband’s story, and she continues to live as a single woman. Yet David’s father does not give up and he keeps looking for a cure to fight his son’s illness. David’s father goes far away from David’s mother in search of the cure for his son’s illness. Due to all the great effort by David’s father, his son is cured without having to go to a physician. But in that place, Gary, David’s father, is able to find a job and he works to provide food and clothing for his son. Sometimes he would not eat so that his son could eat. There he meets a woman named Fany Mathurin, and they go to live together without marrying. Two years later, they have a baby girl who is David’s sister.
Although Fany is David’s father’s wife, he does not let her stay alone with his kid out of fear that something may happen. Gary loves his child so much that wherever he goes to work, his child follows. A couple of years later, David finds love in his father and his mother, who is his father’s wife. However, David is not satisfied—something in his heart is missing.
One day David misses his mother’s warmth and gaze. After finishing fifth grade in elementary school—as all children—he goes into sixth grade with good grades. He observes how each child has a mother and he misses his mother. He feels sad, he thinks of his mother, and he cannot even remember her face. Before moving on to the eighth grade, David thinks it is important to inquire about his mother. David goes to his father and asks: “Daddy, why do I not have my mother with me?”
David’s father explains to David why he separated him from his mother, but David could not even understand the struggle his father went through so that he would survive and be cured of the tumor he had in his head. David wants his mother no matter the cost. He wants to find out how he came into this world. David feels frustrated and does not know what to think, whether what his father tells him or what his own heart is telling him. Even then, he decides to go in search of his mother. Before hitting the road, he decides to tell this to his other mother, his father’s wife. She gives him advice and tells him the following: “You know I love you and treat you like I do my own children, but the most important thing is that I raised you. Wait until you grow up and are able to have a job, and then you will be able to go to her, but now you are still too young. David: listen to me and think again.”
David grows up. His body and his voice change. He now thinks he is his own master and begins to talk in a vulgar way to his father. His father gets upset and attacks David badly. In that moment, David thinks of only one thing: to commit suicide. He begins walking towards a tree to commit suicide. During the trek, something makes him change his mind. He hears several voices telling him: “You have a great future, you have goals to accomplish,” and others that say to him: “Leave, your father does not want anything to do with you, he wants you to fail.” While walking he is fighting his own mind, and he gets to reason, he changes his mind, decides to be a Christian and God decides to change his life.
God changes David’s life; he no longer disrespects his father. God decides to make him a new person. David calculates a number and the result is exactly what his father had told him…and he told him how he had arrived at the place where he was at. David does not condemn his mother for having left him…nor his dad for having abandoned him. David dreams of meeting his mother one day, and he understands what his mother was going through in her period of adolescence. He does not blame his mother for committing a mistake, because we all make mistakes and deserve a new opportunity. If God forgives human beings, how can I not forgive my mother, who brought me into this world?