DAY 23 - 30 DAYS WRITING CHALLENGE
Dear Mom,
Really. I have never thought I'd write this. This year made it a decade that you died - it always amazes me how time flew to get to this point. At your anniversary this year, I had planned to wax poetics on all that has been going on, but that day - we were made to submit an assignment (turned out to be a false alarm) and so, I didn't even remember that day was your death anniversary until like a week later. My siblings didn't even say anything in our group chat. Well, it's not as if we've ever reminisced on it. I guess everyone figures it's better not to remind ourselves.
These days, I ponder on how different life would have been if you were here but most importantly, there are like a gazillion questions I want ask you, especially now with my crazy views and opinions - on the society and how your youth was. Would you have been shocked with the way I reason now? Or would I have been a promising evangelist in the making? I doubt the latter but you get the drift.
Anyways, that conversation will never happen but there's no harm in sharing it. It's catharsis for me - purgation of emotions.
You see, I came across a file containing your obituary. I remember that evening my siblings and uncle came back. They had this fake smile and your belongings. I kept asking where you were and why they were with your stuffs, but they were being obtuse and that day, I had had the feeling that something was amiss.
That night, I tried to get ahold of their phone to check messages they sent to daddy, but they hid the phones that night. The next morning when they broke the news to us, the only thing I kept saying to myself was, "so I don't have a mother again. So I'll never see you again, so I am now motherless."
And I was regretful, because the last time you had come to see us, I was busy asking you why you spent the little strength you had to come see us. Then, the week of your demise when my siblings asked to go see you, I declined because of my hatred of going out. But I didn't cry, couldn't cry then.
But I cried earlier this month, by Jove I cried. I read the tribute I wrote, remembered the part which I wanted to include, "you didn't even see my birthday" but omitted because I felt that the birthday had passed before the burial. I cried when I read my brother's detailed tribute, cried when I read his letters of update to my father. Cried because I calculated how old my eldest siblings were when it became just us, cried as I calculated how old my brother was as he was taking on all of these responsibilities and sacrifices, yet not once did he complain - ever.
So I swear - I owe my siblings. I owe them and I owe their kids. Even if it means to my detriment, I owe them (debts that I can't repair even if I tried). But I promise you, you'd have been so proud of how we fared, and how much the years had gone by. You did a perfect job raising your first three kids.
I know you're either resting or in a better place than this cruel world. I think you'll love to hear people who knew you always say to me, "Ahh, this one is Ify through and through"
Rest Easy.
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