Just few days to my birthday and I feel like I just have to empty the bank of my mind. I may not have gotten to where I thought I would be today, but I have definitely in my own little, tiny ways achieved those things I also never dreamt of getting.
Retelling my childhood has been something I've always avoided, not wanting to hear anyone ask about it. This is not because of lack of things to say nor because it was too dark and awful than any other person's own.
Childhood they say is: "the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected" Source
I grew up in the midst of 6 siblings: 4 elder brothers, a younger brother and a sweet little sister as the last born (definitely not the least). I remember mum coming home a particular Sunday with tears in her eyes, when asked why she was crying, she said: "A woman in church today called her shameless and sex-controlled woman"
Dad would shout at her and ask, "why will she call you such names? What have you been doing behind my back to warrant such rubbish talk from someone in the church"
And mum would cry harder and reply: "she said that I was sex-controlled because despite having so little to feed myself, I still open my legs to be impregnated by my husband to bring more rascals to the already burdened world and that I was shameless because I go around with my hungry battalion shamelessly."
Our society frowns at women who gets pregnant before marriage, the same society screams at married women who give birth to many children.
I kept wondering... thinking... I just couldn't comprehend it... Was I really a burden? Is it really a stupid idea to give birth even when married? Was my birth a mistake to my family? Well if not me, was any of my sibling a mistake just because they came as 4th... 6th or even 7th child?
I wouldn't say that growing up was easy, dad had his fault and of course everyone had his or hers, no one is perfect. Every other person in the family understood it, but I didn't.
I never really understood what responsibility was yet I knew it was bad when dad left home without giving mum money for our feeding. I knew my friend's dad wasn't like that, they fed well, had new clothes, paid their school fees on time. Then why couldn't my dad do that?
Because of that, I and dad never agreed on anything other than a "good morning greeting" even our good night was filled with disagreement because most times, we had little or nothing to eat for dinner. I just kept comparing my father with others.
My mum would always tell me that my dad loved me dearly and that he wasn't happy when he couldn't provide for our needs. I saw it as a big lie, so I never appreciated him.
Mum and dad would shameless go out to borrow. They would borrow money for feeding, clothes, school fees, etc. Many times the people they borrowed money from would come banging at our door, raining abuses at my parent's inability to pay their debt.
It wasn't a funny sight to behold. Through borrowing and selling petty things, mum and dad made sure we all went to school. I hated being sent home from school, or going to school without a lunch box like other kids but my parents still told me, if they shamelessly borrow to send me to school then I should shamelessly go through the school like my siblings and stop complaining... I did that... Like my siblings, year in year out...
By 2010... My parents just like every other parent, were able to train a lawyer and two marketers. With me and my other siblings still in school.
July 2010, Dad passed away... Just when he was supposed to be appreciated and rewarded for everything.
From that moment, I could only regret not telling him am sorry when I offended him, I should have saw that even the smiles he gave in the face of hardships wasn't a mockery but just a way to show us that despite what life throws at us, we should find reasons to smile and stay positive.
I wondered why he still loved me all the same despite how stubborn I was. With time I've come to believe this:
Children are knives, my mother once said. They don’t mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don’t we, we clasp them until the blood flows. Joanne Harris
On his last days... I tried to tell him all I should have told him all those years but it wasn't enough. I miss him. I'm miss him a lot. I miss the way he shouted at me when I was wrong, its only a true father that can do that. I missed that father- figure in my life. He wasn't rich but he knew how to protect his own.
Today, my siblings and I stands as graduates and the opposite of what society thought we would be!!! Am just grateful to God. He has been faithful and merciful despite my unfaithfulness.
Thanks for reading!!!