She was cold and her body began to grow stiff just like dad’s minutes before he passed on. I cried because I didn’t want to lose her because irrespective of her imperfection, she was still my mom and had gone through a lot for us.
My father ceased taking care of after having two children with his mistress. He turned his back on us, not even caring if we ate or not, but my mother was always there for and she did everything my father had run away from.
Mother had returned from church an hour ago, deciding to take a nap because of the day’s stress and I told everyone in the house not to disturb her. I was specifically referring to my older siblings Casey and Harry, since they have lost sight of important things and usually get into mishaps with one another.
I was in the room trying to shake off the feeling that life wasn’t a bed of roses, when I heard noises. As I tried to run towards the sound, my phone slipped off my hands and I didn’t even care, I wanted to be sure everyone was okay.
It was my siblings again. This time mother couldn’t bear it, so she tried to wriggle out Casey from Harry’s grip but he wouldn’t let go. It was like something else had taken over Harry and that was when mother yelled; “una wan kill me for this house?”. As she continued in the struggle to separate them, her struggles made her fight for air and next thing, she was suffocating and then slumped.
All my screams to stop the madness earlier was falling on deaf ears, but the sound of my mother on the floor activated an ice-cold silence in the room. We all rushed towards her, touching and shaking her as much as we could, but she was growing cold. The warmth of life was leaving her body and her joints were gradually growing stiff.
My heart skipped and began racing into a realm of confusion. But “thank God”, I muttered out of my skipping breather, she was still breathing. I yelled at my siblings to go away, to give her breathing space, at least she could be with people who cared about peaceful atmosphere. They moved but not completely away because Casey stayed a bit closer but still giving room for air. I started crying and beckoned on mother if she could say something as her eyes were still like that of a statues.
Casey joined me as we called on her, but she was just staring into the same empty space and would not move. My tears flowed harder, I wasn’t ready to become an orphan.
“This was how dad was few minutes before he passed on. You didn’t even know because you were not there and if mother goes because of your stupid attitude I would never forgive you”, I snapped at Harry.
Mother moved for the first time, making a gesture that meant she wanted water, relief flooded my whole body as I rushed to get water for her to drink. She sat up, drank and tried to speak but her voice was so low as if she did not speak at all.
“If husband dey misbehave, we go say make we dey the marriage because of children, if children come dey misbehave wetin person go do?’’, she muttered out when her voice became audible after a while.
A sharp pain tore through my heart as she was the one who single handedly completed my secondary school education with her petty trading and was training my older siblings in tertiary level. She was in great pain which was evident in her tears, and that was when we all knelt beside her, wiped her tears and began telling her how we would be the best children to her and siblings to each other.
“It will never happen again” I said and they all nodded.
Too many things fighting to bring us down and take away our hope and the very reason we are thankful for another day. Many times we feel the worst is upon us and it would never get any better, so we want to give up into despair, frustration or depression. Just hang on there a little, don’t give up just yet even though most times your whole body wants to take the easy way out and quit. Keep moving keep pushing, hope is knocking
Blossom Obi writes from Owerri, Imo State. For comments and responses, reach her via obiblossom8@gmail.com or Twitter/Instagram: @BlossomObi3
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