MOTHERHOOD| CHILDHOOD| STORYTELLING
My Mother: With Her Little Money Tied In a Corner of Her Wrapper …
She was, and still is, more than gold
I could recall as a kid I was sickly but not a sickler. I was usually having sore throat. It would come with its physical pain.
The most disastrous pain was my inability to swallow anything. Usually of course, I had, and maybe still have, a highly active appetite. No, don’t just go there.😆
To borrow the evangelical term, “I am anointed to eat.” Of course, that’s with some tints of amusing effect.
She would most often buy the bean-cake (akara), one of my most favourite delicacies. Whenever she went to the market, she would buy us such equivalent of an appetizer.
Another thing she could buy was moi-moi or agidi. We were, especially yours truly: emotionally or sentimentally attached to those mini-food items.
If for any reason she could not buy them, it was a sign of some form of tragedy of that day. Either she had an unusually bad day: could not make expected sales or something of that nature could have occurred.
My siblings and I would make an unexpressed statement like: “You should better go back to the market to buy them now before the market closes.”🤭😱
That was our unwritten, untold body language. It also smarked of how indisciplined we had become. We would grudgingly participate in any other domestic activity that day until the gross disappointment had gone off our brains.
The greatest personal tragedy was when I would be infected with malaria fever — with the saddening sign of not being able to swallow my food. The appearance and aroma of akara, or any other traditional dessert, as it were, would be a taboo as a result.
I would typically shake my head to them. My siblings would unavoidably devour the delicacies: theirs and mine. They would tell me sorry while they were totally tactically thrilled that they would, and must, have got more shares of the localized national cake.
My mother would be worried and helpless. She would look for drugs and any other thing she could do to ensure my quick recovery.
Meanwhile, the pain was stubborn enough that I could not swallow any drugs at that point, except injections. The other alternative was to get me a tin of milk which I could manage to take by virtue of its liquid form.
Most times when my mother could afford and give them to me, they would easily facilitate my healing-cum-recovery process. In fact, the liquid milk worked faster than drugs most of those times.
After a couple of days, I would return to normalcy and continue enjoying my native delicacies.
One thing was striking about my mother. She would neither complain nor feel bitter for whatever it had cost her to secure my full recovery.
She would rather be delighted. If she could not afford it immediately, she would not mind to buy it on credit. She might go a step further to borrow some money in order to solve the urgent need.
Incidentally, my father was not often at home. He lived in a distant fishing/farming community where he would come home about twice or thrice a year to see us.
Whenever he returned, however, was a period of celebration of some kind. He would buy items like rice and meat which were special ‘luxuries’ those days.
As a matter of fact, it was only the Christmas festivities that rice and stew was guaranteed. It was a super luxury for us to see rice quarterly in a year. In fact, it never happened; to the best of my memory.
My mother, however, stood in the gap in the understandable absence of my father. She made sure we were well fed. Whenever she would travel for any reason, she would make sure a big pot of soup — with all the amino acids of meat and fish — was available until she would return.
My mother was and still is kind to a fault. Unlike my father who would shout and flog at the least provocations, my mother would only mildly scold us.
There were two, nay three things she would never tolerate however about us.
One, Thou shalt not eat food in another person’s house. Two, thou shalt not steal — especially outside. Three, Thou shalt not commit any offence worthy of a formal report or complaint from another parent.
One day, I had visited a nearby home and stayed there rather late. When I tried to go, the mother of the house would passionately plead with me to stay and eat before I did. Childlike, I obeyed.
By the time I got home that day: the oral bashing, lashing and slashing from my mom was better imagined ... As a matter of fact, it was worse than flogging and beating combined.
You would wish the ground would open and swallow you up. That was my mother: the gentle but principled heroine.
Through the money tied in the corner of her wrapper, she would take care of us: my siblings and me. She would go any length to ensure our security, safety and satisfaction were procured or guaranteed, or both.
Those and more she did even in the active absence of our father. She would remain hungry to ensure that we ate and went to school.
Most significantly, she regretted that she did not go to school for circumstances beyond her control. She sacrificially ensured that we did.
Interestingly, I became the first graduate of my family — a story for another day. My mother as we speak, has numerous grandchildren as university graduates and undergraduates.
These could not have been possible without the role played by her money symbolically tied in a part of her wrapper. The little money did countless wonders.
Thanks for reading.
Note:
Moi-moi: Steamed bean cake or bean pudding
Agidi: Corn meal
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Read my story:
Read the story that inspired this piece. Written by my sister from another mother Okwywrites. Even without her knowledge, the story⬇️ struck a chord with me …
Thanks a lot, nwannem.
