Ricardo Campbell - Photo by Paul H. Williams

"I saw the vehicle come up, he came out, same height, same features, same everything. I said, but this one is my father, because there were two of them, but I picked him out. I said, 'That man is my father, no doubt'."

This was how 21-year-old Ricardo Campbell, of St Andrew, described the moment when he saw the man of whose whereabouts he had no idea for almost 16 years.

As a young boy, he might have glimpsed his father a few times, so he had "only vague images" of him. He heard that he was a policeman and nothing else. His mother, with whom he lived a reasonably good life, didn't discuss him. But, as fate would have it, she died from cancer when Ricardo was approaching grade five. From her dying bed, she told him not to let anybody take advantage of him. Yet, that was exactly what happened.

Roller-coaster ride

The events leading up to the moment when his father embraced him were full of twists and turns, and he can vividly recall them as if they had happened only yesterday. It was quite a roller-coaster journey, replete with uncertainties, pitfalls and hurdles. However, the essence of his story is how hardship and challenges can propel the human spirit towards the attainment of excellence.

Shortly after his mother's death, he left for Barbados with his stepfather for whom his mother had a son. His stepfather's mother, however, didn't take to Ricardo. Whenever Ricardo referred to him as 'Daddy' in her presence, she reminded him admonishingly that her son was not his father, and he shouldn't call him such. It was never going to be good, so Ricardo returned to Jamaica.

With his mother dead, and not knowing his father, he was virtually an orphan who went to live with relatives in St Catherine. There, the vicissitudes of life were to rock his boat and turn it inside out, upside down. Moving from one house to another and back was the rhythm on which his existence bobbed and wove. As such, his clothes and other personal effects were always in bags. Some of the details of what happened to him are too personal and disturbing to tell publicly, so we shall let them be.

Nonetheless, Ricardo spoke at length of being accused of being on drugs and roughed up at school because of such an allegation. Being locked out of his relatives' house is also forever etched in his mind. He recalled at one point where he was the one washing, cooking and cleaning while there were girls and women in the household doing absolutely nothing.

Sabotage

And, in all of the frustration and instability, he studied his lessons. Yet, when the time to pay for his Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects came around, there was no money; so he sat the ones that were paid for by Government and passed them. Not satisfied, he decided to sit the others the following year. He attended private classes and prepared himself well. Days before his exams his timetable mysteriously disappeared.

It was, however, discovered one morning in a very 'strange' place, which stunned him. Sabotage was staring him right in the eyes, perhaps again. On looking over thetimetable, he realised he had an exam that very day. He had no money, went to seek help from a friend, and then set off for the exam for which he was 15 minutes late. After some amount of administrative reluctance he was allowed to sit the exam, which he passed, along with two others, subsequently.

One day, in 2005, in a conversation with a friend about 'father issues', the friend's mother, who overheard the discussion, interjected, as she was surprised Ricardo didn't know his father. It happened that she was in a position to do some enquiring. She approached the man whose name Ricardo had given her. Ricardo's phone number was also passed on. With that done, he waited with bated breath for the call.

It came one Monday evening. "When I got a call on my cellphone, the voice sounded exactly like mine ... I had this joy, I said, 'Finally'," he recalled. The person on the other end introduced himself as his father, and Ricardo was now bathing in a river of hope. After all those years of wondering and yearning, there was someone who called him son. The man asked him for his mother and was shocked to know she had passed on. They decided to meet at a certain time and place.

Period of anxiety

As he waited for the meeting, "it was a period of anxiety, all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind ... I was there hoping and praying that it's really true and that I wasn't dreaming". And he wasn't. For, when he saw his father, accompanied by a friend, he knew right away that he was looking at his own blood.

"I reached out for his hand to shake it, and he said, 'No man, hug me up mi son!', and mi hug him up," he said, the joy of the moment still resonating in his voice, glinting in his eyes, and stretching his mouth into a wide smile. They went into the vehicle for a drive-out, and Ricardo was beside himself with happiness. "I'm not a person to cry, but I was extremely happy, man. Even sitting down in the van, I couldn't stop looking at this man. I was looking at me in the future. It was just fascinating," he recalled.

As they drove around visiting relatives, they realised they shared so much in common - the love of science, arms, motorcycles, which his father had ridden for years, even Spanish, which Ricardo had passed at CSEC and which his father had taught. In less than 24 hours many connections, spiritual and otherwise, were established. He subsequently met some of his father's relatives, including one of his father's other sons.

Upon his father's request, Ricardo eventually moved to the Corporate Area, and now, after four years, the relationship between father and son is excellent.

"We get along quite well, quite fine. We share the same view about a lot of things; real, real father-son relationship. We are on the road almost every week," he said, his tone betraying his contentment.

By no means bitter

On reflecting on what had happened to him, from his mother's death to meeting his father, he's by no means bitter. In fact, it might have done him a great deal of good because, today, this diminutive youngster is quite multifaceted. "Probably that was just a learning experience for me. I think all of those experiences were meant to bring me up, to get me rounded as an individual," he surmised.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com