Dad, where are you? - 48-year-old Clarendon man searches for his father

The last time 48-year-old Anthony McGowan saw his father, Balfourd, he was about nine years old. He remembers his mother, Brenda, leaving him at his father's house in May Pen, Clarendon, during the time of the big June flood in 1980.

"We were living in Hope Flats in Papine, St Andrew, and he left my mother when I was at the age of about five or six, and my mother found him back in Clarendon, at 10 Harris Street," McGowan recalls.

While living with him, McGowan said his father left him with his stepmother and she, in turn, left him alone in the house. He said an adult gave him money to take the train back to Kingston.

McGowan reunited with his mother, but it was no bed of roses, telling CENTRAL STAR that his mother disliked him because he resembled his father.

By age 15 McGowan, said he was on his own, bouncing from yard to yard. Sometimes he ate, other times he had to deal with hunger.

He remembers "tearing down school or churchyard" just to find a place to sleep.

Now a father of nine children, McGowan said more and more he keeps thinking about his own father, wondering why he ran out on him. He also wants his children to know their grandfather - maybe learn a little more about their heritage.

"I am not seeking anything, I just want to be able to look at him and get all these questions answered. I want to know why he never cared enough to stick around," said McGowan.

Growing up without a father's or mother's love for McGowan was challenging, and he soon strayed from the Christian path he was on. Years later, an older brother had to 'set him back in line', as he said when he became a father he started distancing himself from his first child.

"My brother, Vernon, saw the same thing happening and he had to talk some sense into my head. I realised I was doing the same thing he (my dad) did and I had to man up," he shared.

Today, McGowan is married to Kennesha Lewin and is a member of a Pentecostal church. He, however, said that there is a still a huge space in his life, and that, he said, will be filled the day he reunites with his father.

"Now that I am a father and see how important being there for your children is, I would love my children to know their grandfather. I went through hell, my mother didn't like me because I resembled him," he said, a trace of sadness still in his voice.