My name is Dwayne Dyce, but I wasn’t supposed to be a “Dyce.” If life was always fair, my twin brother and I would have had the family name, “Ramdeen.” That was if our father had been a part of our lives. However, he refused to be a father to us and since my pre-teens I’ve been driven to find out where we are from and why we are fatherless. 

My twin and I were born in Jubilee Hospital in Kingston in the early 1980s. Since our mother was only nineteen-years-old when she brought us into this world, our grandparents took us in when we were about 3-weeks-old. 

We grew up in the farming town of Murray Mountain in St. Ann, one of 14 parishes in Jamaica. We spent a lot of time in our youth helping both of them take care of their farm: planting and harvesting crops; feeding the chickens, goats, pigs, and cows; and keeping our little home tidy. My grandmother introduced us to our Catholic faith and instilled in us the value of a good education. 

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At this point, the search became more than personal. My understanding of my Indian side had become part of a goal to empower fatherless youth to know that it is OK to share their story openly and without shame.

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My quest to learn about myself started when we were about 10-years-old. I began wondering about our background because no one in our community looked like us. It was apparent that we were mixed with Indian and Black, but we did not know where the Indian features came from. 

Stories from our grandparents gave us some details that piqued my interest even more about learning about our father. We learned that our mother is of Black and Chinese descent with our maternal grandmother being Black and our maternal grandfather being Chinese and Black. However, that was not enough.

While we did have our grandfather as a man we could learn from, I still felt the emptiness caused by not knowing our biological father. Knowing a father would give me a shared identity and I knew it was an Indian identity. However, it was an identity that we knew nothing about. So, we continued to ask about him. 

We were told that our father was in Kingston, but the other information was vague. We were given the family name of a man that we did not resemble and he turned out to be our sister’s father. He was obviously not of Indian descent. This only made us even more curious. So, we persisted with our questions. Our grandmother was the only one willing to talk candidly to us, but she did not know anything about our father.

At this point, the search became more than personal. My understanding of my Indian side had become part of a goal to empower fatherless youth to know that it is OK to share their story openly and without shame. To reach that goal, we had to search another seven years.  

A couple of weeks before turning 20-years-old, I assume my mom got frustrated with my frustration and she finally shared my biological father’s name. She was living in Kingston and eventually took us to him. During this period, I also used my biological father’s name to trace my paternal lineage back to my grandfather, who had come to Jamaica, from India, as an indentured laborer.

When we finally meet our father in Kingston, the visit was short but eye-opening. There are no words to describe the feeling of finally looking at someone who looked just like us. It left me feeling numb.

While I was still dazed, he proceeded to argue with my mother, asking her why she brought us to him. We tried to engage him in a friendly conversation, but he was very uneasy. It seemed as if he had not rehearsed for his first meeting with his twin sons. 

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My journey to knowing my father, despite all of the intrigue and hurdles, never impeded my resolve to be the very best father I could ever be to my child. It has made me a more conscience parent.

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We asked him if he was our father, he responded, “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything, now?” We asked him if he cared about us. He told us that it wasn’t necessary at the present moment because “Unhu ah big man now!” 

My brother asked him if he knew what it was like growing up without a father and without knowing him. He gave us a dismissive smile and said we were doing well. At the end of our encounter, we had to demand that he take some pictures with us and share his cellphone number so we can stay in touch. 

Though the meeting doesn’t have a fairy tale ending, the search was over. I was resigned to the satisfaction of knowing who I was and where I was from - - even though he has not returned any of our calls.

My journey to knowing my father, despite all of the intrigue and hurdles, never impeded my resolve to be the very best father I could ever be to my child. It has made me a more conscience parent.

My daughter accompanies me to all the talks that I do, we go out on dinner dates, watch all of the princess movies together, and we spend time on the phone two times per day when she is not with me. She knows that I love her and want her to be the best version of herself every day. My daughter knows that I will never allow her to grow up without her father.

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Dr. Dwayne Dyce works as a teacher in Washington, DC. He is also a published author, a motivational speaker, and the Chair of the Jamaica Diaspora Education Taskforce.

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From Our Archives:  Permission to Feel the Loss

Unlovable, promiscuous, and over compensating are three of the many feelings that the mostly female group expressed as they talked with Jonetta Rose Barras about growing up without a meaningful connection with their biological father, or a relative who grew up without such a relationship.