I looked beyond the dark skies then back into the room. It was a slowly burning candle light that was illuminating the room. There was the small calabash where she drank water from in the corner and then a hard mattress which was highly uncomfortable. The stench of death was somewhere around. I looked ahead in fear and looked at my old sick mother on the bed, moving at times, convulsively. This whole situation was getting on my neck. I shifted for the lad who’d gone to fetch some agbo for my mother to enter. The moon was at the fullest tonight and my mother seemed worse than ever. I closed my eyes and sat slowly on a stool. It was highly uncomfortable not the stool, my being here but I just had to. I’d left my work in the city, to be here. I sighed. Hopefully she’d get better-but that was just hope. I’d prayed and prayed and done my best. It was all up to God.
Mother coughed. I turned hurriedly to look at her. The lad dropped the agbo and quickly ran off without collecting money. I wonder what it was that these villagers whispered. Some said she had been a witch and was paying for her sins. The words of the ignorant always baffled me. Once was a time mother was healthy and the village philanthropist. Her seven children, wealthy, were spread around the country and a person out of jealousy said brain cancer was payment of sins? Mother was even a great lover of God. She herself was the one who brought me to God. I smiled remembering her when she was very young and active.
Old age had come and taken her youthful vitality away from her.
I stood up and went to her. Mother looked so agonizingly in pain. I just wish there was something I could do to ease her pains.
‘You know you’ll soon die’ I said soothingly to the old woman. Words like that comforted her more than ever. Mother couldn’t just withstand the pain.
‘I know. I know’ she said a croaked whisper ‘but all I want is to see my babies before I die’
I hesitated. Where were they that they couldn’t be here with me with our mother? ‘Yes mother, I’d be on the phone with them right away’ I said and smoothened the ruffles on my dress. Who was I kidding I thought still looking at the now smoothened ruffles as if they were supposed to have answers. the same siblings that had dumped our own mother here might just not want to see her.
I picked the phone to call them one after the other.
Professor Ajao picked up the call immediately. ‘I’m sorry bimpe, you of all people should understand. I can’t be there- the university needs me-’
‘But mama needs us-’
‘I watch your African magic almost-death partings, you can text it to me’ my sister barrister tope said
‘Erm, you know I can’t just leave the hospital-I have rounds almost 18 hourly-’ Thomas said
‘I’m too far from home bimpe, tell mama I love her’ kehinde said, his voice without a trace of sympathy
‘There’s no one to watch the kids—or cook and you know- maybe-I can’t’ taiwo said. I could hear the sound of beach music in the background. It was obviously a spa trip.
‘I’ll be there soonest-’ idowu said, I could read the trace of untruth in her voice.
I turned to mama. She was looking up at me. ‘They’re not coming right?’
‘Mama, I tried-’
‘Bimpe, come here’ she said motioning for me to come to her side. I felt her wrinkled palm on mine. The tears-the constant tears began to fall from my eyes. ‘Did I offend them?’
‘No mum, I doubt that’
‘Then why don’t they want to come here-to see me’ I could hear the craving in her voice, like a mother hen who wanted her chicks desperately. I felt so sorry I broke down into loud sobs.
‘Common!’ she scolded ‘don’t do that.’ She said trying to reach for my eyes.
‘Mum, I’ll always be by your side. Always!’ I said as my two children walked in to be with their grandma. They hugged her and kissed her.
Her maid walked in.
‘Mum, we’re going. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow with your favorite dish’
‘How little that means to me now’ she said agonized ‘I can almost see the light-but I’ll be expecting you alright’
‘Gran, you’re not going anywhere okay?’ my seventeen year old said frowning. As protective as his father. I watched him kiss her and firmly hold Lola’s hand. I knew just what that said. You’ve not been there for us. I felt so alone.
We walked outside sluggishly. I just needed a hot bath and some fresh clothes right now.
I fell asleep immediately we got to the hotel. Only to be woken up a few minutes later by Lola and bola. I wondered what was wrong. I slowly opened my eyes to realize it wasn’t a few minutes later, it was five hours later and news had just gotten to us that my mum fell down and something about her hand-
For one second, I was totally confused. I called my husband. He was a doctor; he’d know what to do. Then I put on a lighter dress and ran off with Lola and bola.
The next hospital was about twenty miles from the village. I sighed.
Few minutes later when I stepped into the room, my mum was at the point of death. I saw the ruptured hand; it had a slice which the maid explained was from the nail in the bed. It was bleeding terribly still on the floor. We moved her to the bed because she couldn’t do so herself. She was clinging on to life. I saw it in her deliberately, slowed breaths. She was a strong woman.
‘I want you to call my babies. I want to see them before I go’ she said
I made calls to all of them. I didn’t want to hear their excuse. I just dropped the facts and cut the phone.
‘They’d be here’ I said hopefully. The longest it would take any one of them to get here was two hours and I believe she could hold on till then. Being the youngest I was naturally close to my mother but right now, I needed my siblings as much as she needed them.
Soon, when my husband arrived, mother wasn’t talking anymore. She couldn’t speak and she was too tired to try harder to speak. My husband couldn’t do anything and he doubted if the hospital could. He took care of the cut and made her very comfortable. Then one by one they arrived. It was when idowu arrived that mother opened her eyes. She smiled and raised her fingers slowly to wave at them.
It was seven in the morning.
It was two the incident had happened. She lifted a paper off and still as her hand hung in the air, she closed her eyes, dropped it and slept.
I tried to convince myself she was asleep but the air hung still and the noise of her heavy breaths had stopped. It was the obvious Lola knew it because she clutched tightly to her daddy-not me,
Professor took the letter and read it as the others poured out hypocritical tears—I guess. No, they actually meant their tears but it wasn’t anyone’s fault they hadn’t been there for her.
Professor fell down on his knees and passed the letter on.
‘I’m sorry you treated me this way’ taiwo read aloud ‘it’s not your fault I became a burden at barely seventy. It’s okay. I hope to meet you guys in heaven... Please don’t feel bad that you weren’t there for me. Don’t. For the nine months I carried you, growing inside me, no charge. For the time I sat up with you doctored you, wait for you, no charge. For the times that I sat and the worries I had, there is no charge, when you add it all up, the real sum of my love is no charge’ my favorite song. I didn’t want anything from you but love. Oh well, I love you all. I know deep down you love me, you know. Peace is with you till we meet again.’
I started crying too.
But I realized that very moment that mother’s letter, wasn’t just about her. It was the things we took as priorities, forgetting the ones we loved and who love us when they need us, Thinking, they’ll be there forever.
I turned to my kids. I’d put my work above them. I kissed them.
Death was such a close friend we never knew the day it would betray us.
Till death does us part was too taken for granted.
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