I have never seen anything like my mother before. Although she keeps saying that she has never seen anything like me before too. I guess that makes the two of us the perfect mother and son with infallible similarities. We loved to disagree on things and it was actually beautiful.
I am not ashamed to admit that perhaps, I spent quite a lot of time during my childhood trying to make other people cry. It was like a religious rite strictly adhered to. Not because I was a sadist of some sort but I always imagined how someone would look like when he or she is going through that heartbreaking moment that would force tears down their eyes.
I made my mother cry on several occasions that she wished I had not found my way into her womb. But that is the beauty of motherhood; to be hurt same time you are loved. But she didn’t pass the verdict too quickly or give up on me. That was special in an awesome kind of way.
In the midst of those troubles, I made my family proud in a way that is no longer possible and I was the envy of other mothers who equally loved to despise you when you have brutal run-ins with them.
My sister Thecla, took after my mother in everything except the fact that she hates arguing the Bible with me each time I was looking for a way to avoid leading the evening prayers. It was a skillful show of classic treachery that only a few understood.
I’d throw up a random question about a controversial verse in the Bible and that will be it for the night. And I will never ever allow the argument to die down but continued adding fuel to the flame that fired their curiosity till the night is no longer safe for such arguments and everyone yearning for the comfort that their beds brought.
I made her cry also and broke her heart into thousands shreds, but she kept forgiving until I was able not to need her forgiveness anymore.
Yet, I have not seen anything like my mother; a virtuous woman who keeps preaching forgiveness and kindness even in the face of sorrows. They don’t make them like that anymore.
My mother knew exactly the time I was over growing her aging hands in their ability to whip senses into my troublesome head. She hated the fact that it was becoming so and did everything within her power to keep me from developing those wings that my soul yearned for. She knew that they led to destruction and it was magical.
The proverbial story of the okro not overgrowing whoever planted it was real in my case and it came with methods. I had tried to block a slap from her but spent the whole night explaining to Papa how I did not try to beat her up. It was a court where the complainant was also one of the deciders in chief.
And it worked, because we began avoiding each other. No! I was the one avoiding her before they accuse me of something that would make the world cringe in sorrow. People can lynch you in my own neck of the woods when you sneer unnecessarily at your mother let alone when they hear the horrible thing of your laying your cursed fingers on your mother. You will be thrown into a lake of fire.
And that is just the way it is. I’d avoid her food and did everything possible for us not to have any form of confrontation again. But in all the hide and seek, she always showed up with that smile that says “you can never overgrow me, not even in death”. And I think that I took after her in many things except the fact that I have not submitted my consciousness to religion for its torture, lately anyway.
Someone asked today who I think my hero is, and I answered “my mother” without a second thought. She asked why? “because I have never seen anything like her” I replied! Yes because I know that none of my brothers’ wives and mine will ever have the mother in-law problem even when mothers feel for their sons more than their daughters and think that no woman is good for them.
She sees you through your strength and not your weaknesses and I know that my father is the happiest married man of his generation because my mother took care of many things, even troubled emotions by putting herself in other people’s shoes so as to understand them.
Tell us what you think you know about your mother.
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