Today is my birthday: Here are the three loves of my life

Dec 30, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I was born as a Capricorn during the festive season of the calendar year but was never ecstatic about Christmas. I think it had to do with my poverty background. I hated when the season came around because Christmas is a moment of oceanic expectations.
As a kid you want toys and Christmas food. As a grown up youth, you want clothes, I never got any of those things because money was not there. My father was the groundsman for the sports ground of St. Stanislaus School. My mom sold wood and coal for a living. There were six kids older than me.
My father in 1956 spent all of his savings on my famous brother’s (Harold) wedding, who went by the nickname “Lightweight”. Harold was an ungrateful devil. When things got really bad my mom sought him out for help but he simply refused. Here is a little piece of history for Cathy Hughes of the AFC, a politician whose name I care not to mention. My brother, Lightweight, was the gardener for her grandparents – the Chomondeleys. My brother watched Mrs. Hughes’ father grow up.
The year before my brother’s wedding, I got the one and only Christmas present in my entire life. My mom bought a light green water-gun. That was my present every Christmas since I kept it neatly hidden away and would dust it off and put it to use every year. When I got married in 1979 and was leaving to study at MacMaster University in Canada, I took it down from the window ceiling where it resided for decades and kissed it and asked my mom to take care of it.
Months after leaving Guyana, my father died. Months after his death our rented house that I grew up in on D’Urban Street, Wortmanville crashed to the ground and that gun, the symbol of my Christmas desires, was lost forever.
I am not doing anything for my birthday; I will just be spending it quietly with my family – my first love. My family is my wife, only child, Kavita, one dog, two cats and a rabbit. Those are my first love. Nothing can stop me from going on the seawall with my dog today. I am obsessively attached to the six members of my family.
My wife is my life and I would never want to be without her. Whenever the marshals from the court brings the libel writs and stands at the gate, she would be there and she would exclaim: “another one,” but I would be comforted in the reality that she will always be there when the trial begins.
The second love of my life is the University of Guyana. Growing up in Wortmanville was a Shakespearean drama where from moment to moment you live without thought and aspiration. There was nothing to aspire to. I met a friend, Leyland DeCambra, who later became the head of the WPA London branch. We met in an organisation named Guyana-East German Friendship Society headed by the famous Boyo Ramsaroop. He was taking his GCE lessons and I got influenced by him. I took my GEC exams and on passing I applied to UG.
If UG wasn’t there for me, I would never have made anything of my life. UG saved me from mental wandering. I was heartbroken when my teaching contract was terminated. I was equally heartbroken because the AFC that I did so much for did not facilitate my return to UG. I guess politics has never been kind to me.
I always loved UG. It is part of Guyana that is part of me. It will remain part of me. It is too late to serve it again because age has caught up with me. But if there is anything I am grateful for, it is the University of Guyana for making something out of me. The third love of my life is my country. I don’t know why I love Guyana but I do. Below are the words of one of my favourite songs by one of pop music’s greatest stars, Shirley Bassey. The title is, “I Capricorn”.
I Capricorn,
Child of the morning,
Climber of rainbows,
Rider of winds.
And I have summer days to squander,
Seven lives to live,
All the fires of winter,
All my love to give.
I Capricorn,
Born of the sunrise,
Keeper of seashells,
Reaper of winds.
And I have happiness to scatter,
Dreams for coming true,
Love to last for always,
And it’s all for you,
All for you,
All for you,
All for you,
All for you,
All for you…

I Capricorn,
Worker of wonders,
Mover of mountains,
Lover of you.
I Capricorn,
I Capricorn,
I Capricorn,
I Capricorn,
I Capricorn…
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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