I’m not sure how it is in every household but for mine, my mum was the leading parent figure. She was very disciplined and strict that none of us wanted to incur her wrath. We tried to do her biddings and whenever we got carried away playing with our mates outside, she made sure we paid for it. Her anger was a really big deal so we tried our possible best to avoid it. My sister seemed really good at impressing my mum.
Whenever she did something wrong, she would set out to do everything in her power to please my mum, making sure she escapes mums wrath. My sister would sweep, clean, and arrange every corner of the house. She would clean until every where is sparkly and even rearrange the position of furniture in the sitting room to give the house a new and different look.
When my mum is back and takes the first step into the house, her face would be filled with beautiful, genuine smile with some trace of pride. No matter how we try to tell the story of what my sister did wrong, mum wouldn’t listen.
She'll be so proud of her and she would keep telling my sister that her children will do same for her. She had the key to my mum’s heart and she used it to her advantage. She gets away from punishment by arranging the house to impress mum.
She permitted me to use her picture
I, on the other hand never cared about impressing anyone. I made sure I did what I was told, tried to avoid punishments and just stayed on my lane.
There was something I and my siblings did one day to impress my mum. It was the most remarkable of all. A day I can never forget.
We harvested some tubers of cassava from our farm to process into garri. Usually, my elder brother takes the already peeled and washed cassava for grinding.
The next morning, we go back to carry the already grinded and pressed cassava home. All of us sieve this garri while my mum fries it into edible yellow garri which we can eat as swallow or just drink it by adding water and sugar, groundnuts or whatever the individual desires to get their desired satisfaction.
This particular day, my mum was going out so she asked us to sieve the grinded cassava as usual and keep it for her to fry whenever she comes back.
We did our part but decided within ourselves to go ahead to fry the garri to surprise my mum. It was our first time but we’ve always watched her do it so we knew just how to go about it. We took turns frying until everything was fried.
All the while, we were praying that my mum shouldn’t come back early so as to make our surprise perfect.
Thankfully, that was exactly what happened. By the time my mum was back, ready to start frying, we were already done with everything. She took one look at the full basin of fried garri and she blurted; “I can’t believe my eyes!”
That was just all we needed to hear to know how successful our surprise package was.
My mum was soooo surprised and super impressed!
We did it!
After that day, we made it a habit to occasionally look at my mum and say; “I can’t believe my eyes”, just like she said it that day. She would just look at us and give us one of her beautiful smiles. It was a sight to behold!
Sadly, my mum is no longer here for us to impress anymore. As I write this post, I miss her so much and appreciate her more every day for all the sacrifices she made for us.
So what do you think guys?
Thanks for reading through!..... See you in the next post!
All pictures not cited were taken by me