Eighteen years ago, my father walked out of my life after a lengthy and very messy divorce battle. I remember the day my mother brought my brother and me in to the study, sat the both of us down, and asked us who we wanted to live with — my father or her. Despite my tender age, I knew my father had committed a marital misdeed. While my peers were still avoiding girls because they had “cooties”, I had become familiar with adult terms such as illicit love affairs and extramarital carnal relations.

My father was granted visitation privileges, and while he did bring my brother and me out a couple of times after the ink on the divorce papers had dried, these visits and outings became more sporadic as the months passed by. Soon enough, we never saw him again, and as we grew up, our memories of him started gathering dust, obscuring important details such as his appearance, his accent and his habits. It became hard for me to tell apart the truth from the embellishments that my mind had decided to conjure up when thinking about the past.

It was only after reading After Visiting Friends, a memoir penned by Michael Hainey that chronicled his search for the truth about his father’s death, that I too began thinking about searching for my father. Unlike the protagonist, I had no clue whether he was married, what he was doing or even whether he was dead or alive. However, just like Hainey, I felt an incredible compulsion to discover the full story instead of what I had been repeatedly told throughout my growing years.

Jesus said that the truth will set you free and I was about to put it to the test.

Unfortunately, I had no idea where or how to begin my search. The only item of his that I had in my possession were the two letters and seven numbers that made up his NRIC, information that I discreetly obtained from my birth certificate. You see, the problem with digging up the past is that the present will begin asking why you are holding the shovel. My mother’s life was torn apart at the seams not only after the divorce but during the marriage as well, and I was afraid that the mere thought of me searching for answers would greatly upset her.

But, the seeds that were planted in my brain had begun spreading its roots and branches and became harder and harder to ignore.

After giving it some thought, I decided to start where it all ends — the Registry of Births and Deaths. My quest came to a grinding halt though when I was told that that a one-month search through their records would cost me S$38 with every additional month costing another S$38. I had neither the funds nor the information to go through this financially painful exercise and decided to drop this route.

The bureaucratic path seemed cumbersome, so I turned to social media instead.

Zero results.

I exhausted many other avenues and although I uncovered other information, a lot of them were irrelevant. The past was determined to stay buried and after a month of intense searching, I was about ready to give up. Then, I had another brilliant thought.

My father used to pick my brother and me up with his taxi when he wanted to bring us out. It was a long shot but if he was still with the same cab company after all these years, I thought they could help me dig out his personal file and give me the address of his current residence.

Fortuitously, I had a source in the cab company who surreptitiously gave me the information I needed on a cold and wet Friday. I decided to pay a visit the next day.

When I arrived at the house late in the evening, my father was not home and a kindly, old lady answered the door. I gave her my father’s name and asked her whether there was such a person living here.

“Yes, he’s my husband. What is this about? Who are you?”

“I’m…,” My mind raced to come up with a satisfactory, believable answer. “…his friend.” I had no idea whether my father had revealed his storied past to his current wife and if she had no knowledge of my existence, I did not want to rock her boat or worse, disrupt their relationship irreparably.

She looked at me suspiciously and asked whether it was okay if I verified my identity by calling her husband. I nodded. A few minutes later, she came back to the metal gates with a smile on her face and asked me, “Are you his son?”

I sheepishly answered yes and she swung open the gates, asking me to come in and wait for my father, who was still, lo and behold, driving the cab but was on his way back home now when he heard that I was there.

He appeared 20 minutes later, a look of heightened expectation on his face. I stood up from the couch. I towered over him by a head. There was a slight pause as he gazed at me, then, he rushed forward and enveloped me in a bear hug. His chest, sobbing. His shoulders, heaving. His chants of apology, choked with emotion.

That was when I broke down. 18 years of unresolved issues, anger, hatred and forgiveness distilled into a tear drop.

Our ensuing conversation was stilted and patchy, a result of almost two decades of non-communication. But, I attacked him with a barrage of questions, none of which he evaded, to his credit. It was a tumultuous night and when I returned home, I asked myself whether I managed to find what I was looking for.

Yes, I had found my father but the tree that stood proudly in my brain had not been axed. If anything, the branches still prodded painfully in my mind. Then, it struck me that I was not actually looking for the truth; I was trying to repair my damaged childhood and reclaim a future where I had grown up in a happy family.

I was not on a search to find my father. I was on a hunt for my own identity, and I had mistakenly believed that finding my father would be the answer. My identity was and is something I had to fashion or discover on my own. The only problem was, I had no idea where to begin my search.

It is quite possible that perhaps, we spend our whole lives searching for resolution, meaning or answers without actually finding what we are searching for. And even if we do, our discoveries might not always satisfy us, just like what had happened with my very own search. Perhaps that is what makes us human.

Until then, I will continue searching.