It was only three of us then. My mum, dad, and me. My older sister lived with our grandparents so her experience of my parents is different from mine. She only got to see them when they visited her. One day I visited my grandparents and my sister and I had conversations about our parents. We gossipped about them and dissected their flaws.  “Who is your favorite between the two? Mama or Kojo?” She asked. Without hesitation, I said Kojo. My sister shook her head and said her favorite was my mum. She asked why I chose my dad and said, “It’s because he doesn’t beat me like mama does.”

My mum was the kind of mum you could describe as uptight. She never spared the rod, lest she spoils the child. My dad, on the other hand, let me get away with anything. He was the parent who was usually at home so I spent a lot of time with him. Wherever he went, I followed. I had a sweet tooth that he often indulged. He would buy me all the toffees I wanted and let me eat all the sugar we had at home if that was what I wanted. My mum was too busy for all this, so you can understand why he was my favorite.

At some point, things didn’t work out between them so they had to go their separate ways. It was my dad who left first. Then one dawn, my mum woke me up and said we were going to visit her family. That visit became an extended stay. The next thing I knew, my mum was selling kenkey in front of her family’s home while I was enrolled in the E.P. primary school behind the house. This was when I started feeling more of my mum’s presence.

The more time we spent together, the more I was convinced she didn’t love me. She would yell at me if I didn’t do my chores. Why? My dad never assigned me any chores. If this woman saw me eating toffees she would start shouting, “Afi, you will get worms in your stomach.” She would then prepare a basin of scalding water and make me sit in it so I wouldn’t get candidiasis from eating all that sugar.

If I got hurt, she would treat it with the same scalding water. This was something I remembered my dad used to argue with her over. He would tell her the only thing one needs to treat a wound is salt and cold water. But she insisted hot water was the best.

When it came to physical touch, my mum did not care for it. Whereas my dad would hold my hands, carry me in his arms, on his shoulders, or even have me lie on him if that was what I wanted, my mum would complain if I touched her for touching sake. “Why are you always all over me? Are you a cat? Be independent,” she would say. Of course, I never understood why she did the things she did.

Occasionally, my dad visited us. His visits always brought about fights about money. It wasn’t until I got to JHS that all the puzzle pieces started falling into place. My dad was doing drugs. I already knew that about him because he would take me along whenever he had to meet his friends in the ghetto. But then, I was too young to understand that he was being irresponsible.

All the things he let me get away with, it was because he was too high to notice or even care. And the fights about money were because my father only visited us when he was broke and wanted money from my mum.

In high school, I told my sister about all the struggles our mum went through to take care of me. There was nothing she didn’t sell. Sachet water, charcoal, second-hand clothes, toys for kids, soap, and anything that appears in season. She even sold hot water during the rainy season. People who traveled to town for trade always found her outdoor fire and hot water comforting.

Sometimes she would gather coins and give them to a day student in my school who lived in our neighbourhood, to bring to me. I was always so touched by how far she would go to provide for my needs.

Sometimes, I would even lie to her that I had money so she shouldn’t bother sending me money. In response, she started buying panties for me to sell. I would sell it to my friends and use the profit to fend for myself. When the panties business slowed down, she started sending me clothes to sell. One time I even got into trouble for selling in class. But I got out of it by marketing some of the clothes to my teacher who bought them. I told my sister, “I now understand how wrongly I misread our family situation when I was a child. Mum is definitely my favourite parent.”

Although I had come to understand her and know her better, I couldn’t connect with her emotionally. When I encountered problems, she was not the first person I talked to. She was even the last person I wanted to know about my business.

In my twenties, we were having a conversation when she said, “This is not how I imagined we would be when you grow up. You are the one child who grew up with me so I expected us to be inseparable. Everywhere I go, there you would be. When I talk, you will listen. If you need advice you would come to. But there is a wall between us that I can’t get through.” I felt bad but I also believed we were as close as we could get.

Then I had my first child in my thirties. My sister came to visit to help take care of the baby. My mum was present but not fully. She was juggling visiting us with work. Other relatives who didn’t understand our situation asked why she wouldn’t come and live with me. I didn’t mind. My sister and I even gossiped that my mum is used to working her entire life. Even when she doesn’t need to, she works. It’s second nature to her. Even now that she is well in her sixties, we can’t get her to stop working. She always has to sell something.

My own experience with motherhood opened my eyes to how much I downplayed the sacrifices this woman made for me. So I sat down with her one day and asked her questions about her life. I just wanted to understand her better. She told me she didn’t live with her mother growing up. She grew up with an aunt who was not maternal or nurturing in any way.

She talked about all the ways she was twisted and bent out of shape by this aunt of hers. There were two of them living with this aunt. Whoever woke up first to throw out the urine in the aunt’s chamber pot gets to eat breakfast in a clean bowl. The other person would be served porridge in the dirty chamber pot. You either wake up early or choose between hunger and whatever her aunt would give you in her chamber pot.

I knew about her aunt but I didn’t know how deep the trauma ran. Even now, my mother barely sleeps. Sometimes she would wake up at 3 am for no reason and ask, “What time is it?” I would have to ask her, “Where are you going? It’s not even 4. Go back to sleep.” Sometimes she wouldn’t. You would think she was doing something wrong by sleeping. I never understood her behaviour until she shared that story about her aunt. There were a few more horrible details I won’t trouble you with.

It got me thinking a lot. My go-to person when I need to talk about these things is my sister so I called her. “Did you know?” I asked her. She said, “I didn’t, but I have always felt our mum doesn’t know how to be a mother emotionally. If you notice, you will realize that she shows her children love by giving us stuff. If you take that away from her, she wouldn’t know how else to love you.”

Everything made sense all at once. Her constant need to work even when we ask her, “Which child are you taking care of that you insist on working?” We send her money every month but she still insists on working. It’s all because of us. My mother never visits any of us empty-handed.

There was a time when my sister, who is almost in her forties and is married with kids, found herself complaining that my mum still bought her clothes. “I told her to buy clothes for the kids and leave me out but she doesn’t listen.” Sometimes she would attempt to buy clothes for my sister’s husband and I would have to dissuade her from it.

When it came to me, the story is the same. I live closest to her so I have benefitted more. Foodstuff, clothes, shoes, name then. My baby has a big basket full of toys, most of which my mother bought. All her clothes and shoes, my mum bought them. She even tried buying slippers for my baby’s dad once but I had to stop her.

READ ALSO: I Don’t Know Who My Father Is But I Know Mom Was Sixteen When She Chose Me

All these years, I had been hard on my mother for not being affectionate enough when it was I who did not understand her love language. The only reason she worked so much when I was a child was because she was the breadwinner of our family. I faulted her for it because the other kids’ mums stayed home with them and mine didn’t.

And all the times I felt she was not emotionally available enough the way other mums were with their kids, she didn’t know how to be like that. How could she when she herself never experienced the warmth of her mother? I was so hard on her when I should have been showering her with praise.

She is not the kind of woman who would hug you, or hold you when you are crying. She would be by your side silently watching you deal with your stuff. And while you are picking yourself up, she would cook your meals, do your laundry, clean your apartment, and buy you stuff.

I remember one time my baby got sick and was admitted at the hospital. My mother came to visit us with new clothes for the baby. My first instinct was to ask her, “Is this really necessary at this time?” But I remembered what my sister said, “If you take that away from her, she won’t know how else to love you.” I understood that her shopping spree was just her way of saying, “I am here for you. It’s going to be okay.” And I smiled and said, “These are nice. She will like them very much.” Hearing that made her smile in relief.

He Called Me On The Phone So I Could Hear The Other Woman’s Voice

As I am navigating motherhood, my mother is now the person I talk to about stuff. “Mama, the baby is crying a lot. Is it normal?” “Mama, I found this on the baby’s skin. How do I treat it?” It got her to start coming around more. She now spends the weekends with us instead of working. I see her playing with my child and I ask myself, “Did I ever hear her laugh like this when I was a child? Was she this playful?” I like seeing her without the weight of the world on her shoulders. My heart is always full when I am with the two of them.

Today, I want to celebrate my mum for her resilience. I wish I could apologize for all the times I gave her a hard time because she wasn’t like other mums, but I don’t have the courage for that conversation today. Hopefully, I will someday. Until then, I am going to do everything possible to make sure she did not labour in vain. Happy Mother’s Day, Afi. I will choose you again in my next life. You are the world to me and so much more.

—Afi’s Afi

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