HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

They say God tests us with afflictions, for the past 30 odd years of my life, mine has been my mother. As far back as I can remember it has been one battle after the other. Her for supremacy; me for justice, democracy and liberty for all! Even as a full grown man, my mother still chose to see me as a child. I would’ve been the boy who grew up in a bubble were it not for my father and his insistence that I be allowed to roam free. My mother’s own insistence however, was that there was nothing good in the world and her need for control made me socially damaged and awkward before I was even released into the world.

It was quite clear to me there were things about our generational gap that she didn’t quite understand, like the Internet and how I could claim spending time on it could make me money. Perhaps most worrying was the fact that she refused to accept we were raised differently in different times. It’s as if she still saw me through those discontenting eyes she hid so well when her friends talked about their own children and their successes. Perhaps discontented more by the fact she could no longer keep an eye on me, try as she may. She found it easy to sympathize with other people’s children being rebellious, but couldn’t extend that sympathy to me when I was portrayed as such! Instead, what I got were roundtable meetings with people who had no business knowing my business; uncles whose only job was to agree with her and statements that started with the words, “Why can’t you be more like…”

I remember having to tell my parents I was going to spend an extra year in the university due to my unsatisfactory grades. There was so much tension in the room, it didn’t help that my mother started consoling my crying father like he just lost his only son. In hindsight, I should’ve read something I was good at but I never really thought much of university to begin with, it just seemed like the thing to do after secondary school, because telling an African parent you have no desire for higher education is akin to committing suicide. So there I was stuck in school, for a little longer than I should have. It was not the greatest feeling in the world not graduating with my mates, but just like a close friend assured me, it too would come to pass and it did.

I remember when we first moved to the city in my teenage years, when my eyes were not fully open (more than a decade later and I still feel my eyes aren’t fully opened). I was forced to play both child and psychologist as I analyzed how much of my mother’s behavior had rubbed off on me, including her anger. How when no one agreed with me, I got angry and how I began to use people as crutches even though I could do a lot of things on my own. I remember when I was much younger; I used to pray that my mother’s behaviour would change. Of course I didn’t understand how faith or God worked and that change didn’t come to one who wasn’t willing to do so on their own and so as I grew up with my faith in a higher power beginning to wane till I was pretty sure I was agnostic.

Whatever problems I had outside my home were minor to those I experienced within it. From understanding girls and their needs, to boys pulling up in cars to take those girls I wanted as I silently watched, none was as disturbing as what went on at home. I remember when I was younger and would purposely stay after school doing nothing, because the thought of going home was dreadful and I couldn’t stand the constant shouting.

When mother spoke, you could actually hear her through the walls of the house. That was because she wasn’t speaking, she was yelling! So growing up I was afraid of having my friends over just in case my mother flipped out like she often did. I preferred going over to my friends’ houses and if their mothers yelled too, it just made me feel more comfortable.

Telling mother, “no”, was like giving her a heart attack. She seemed perfectly fine, till she heard a word of defiance, then all hell broke loose and the melodramatics began and phone calls started being made. It was like the mafia was about to make a hit on you once she picked up her phone, you were going to lose. She believed everyone was out to get her; the telephone company hated her that’s why she never got through, the TV stations were out to get her children, that’s why they never showed anything good and so on and so on. The woman had OCD and didn’t even know it! Even telling her what OCD was and that she might have it, would’ve caused an argument. Come to think of it, BOTH my parents must’ve had OCD, because when you advised them not to do something, they had a compulsive disorder to do exactly that. So I use to wonder why I got yelled at for the doing the same thing!

Growing up, I often wondered if there was a school that taught people how to close doors in a non-violent manner, just so I could take my family there. When mother was angry she’d slam every door in sight and so would everyone. But the most horrifying of nights, was when father was away and in a fit of rage after an argument, mother brought a knife to my room and asked me to kill her since I could be so disobedient. The scars… not on her, I didn’t pick up the knife, I meant the scars this woman produced in my life; I still bear them!

Happiness is when she’s not home for a while, at least we’d miss her a bit, but that was when I was younger before I realized I really needed my own space, instead of settling to be another overgrown man-child, which she seems happy with, while ironically complaining about my existence around her.

There are other afflictions in my life of course, but none more so than my mother!

Happy Mothers’ Day!