When I was younger, twelve or thirteen years old, I did something to annoy my mother. She got angry and started shouting at me. Somewhere in the middle, she said, “You see why I didn’t want to have you? I blame your father.”

I don’t remember being angered or disturbed by this statement until she said it again when I was sixteen.

There was a boy in my class who chased me everywhere with love proposals. He wrote me letters and when he could, he said it in front of me that he wanted to be my boyfriend. Truth be told, my infant heart loved him too but I was scared to admit it.

I kept telling him no but he didn’t give up on me. He continued writing me letters until one evening my mother found one of such letters. “Who is that boy? Are you sleeping with him? Where did you first do it? Oh, so I’m raising an ashawo under my roof all this while?”

I didn’t know which part of the letter suggested that we were sleeping together but my mom concluded I’d slept with the boy. When I protested she said, “Now, I know why I didn’t want to have you. My spirit knew you would turn up this way. Ashawo. Hoooo!!”

My sisters heard it. The children around the house also heard it. The boys, the ones I dreaded most, also heard it. I became the talk of the community. My own mom called me ashawo so other mothers didn’t want me around their kids.

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All these didn’t hurt me more than my sisters hearing that our mom didn’t want to have me. I felt they were special. They were chosen but I happened by accident. I saw myself as inferior. It explained to me why Mom was always on their side whenever we fought.

I hated my mom. I did it with passion. I became defiant. I fought her on little issues. One day I told her, “I’m not your daughter, I know it. Leave me alone.”

She was hurt so she reported the incident to my dad. Dad was a very calm man. So calm at some point I asked what he saw in my mother that he married her. The two were like night and day.

My dad called me to the room and asked me to apologize to my mom. I told him I wouldn’t even if he killed me. My mom was there, looking at me disobey my dad, the most revered person in the household. My dad got up angrily and shouted, “Do you want me to beat you? What has come over you? Are you possessed or something?”

I told him what happened months ago when he wasn’t around. “Mom called me ashawo in the presence of everybody and said it was the reason she didn’t want to give birth to me.”

My dad sat quietly while looking at my mom. “Did you say that to her?” She responded, “No, that’s not how I said it.” I screamed, “Lies, you can call Mensima and ask her. She was there and she heard it.”

My dad asked me to leave. Hours later, they called me in. My mom was crying. She apologized to me while crying. My dad said, “You see what your mom is doing? You’re going to do the same. From today going, I don’t want to see you disrespecting her again.”

I apologized. I became better. She also started treating me better but I never forgot what she said, though I forgave her.

They were looking for a boy after having two girls and then I came. My mom didn’t want to have me but my dad insisted. I’m here because my dad made it possible. Thinking about it this way, made it difficult for me to forget but I didn’t hold anything against my mom. We are cool but I’m closer to my dad than I am to her.

I’m married and have three kids currently. The last born is only one and a half years old but I’m pregnant again. When I told my husband, he said, “No we can’t have it. It’s too soon to have another baby. I thought we agreed we were done. What happened?”

I’ve been crying since my husband said this. It’s bringing back memories. How I hated my mom and how I fought her and how I didn’t forget what she told me. “Will this one grow up one day and my husband tells him the same thing my mom told me?”

When I think about the pain and hurt I went through and the possibility of my child going through the same pain and shame, I tell myself, “I won’t have it. Twice this feeling will be too much.”

But I want to have this child. I don’t think the existence of another child will kill us. When push comes to shove and he tells me he’s not going to have anything to do with it, I will go ahead and carry all the responsibilities but by all means, I will have the child.

My husband doesn’t talk to me. I see the anger in his eyes each time I tell him no. He doesn’t eat my food. He has grown withdrawn from the kids but none of that will push me to do what I don’t want to do. My only problem now is how to shield this child from facing the same abuse I faced with my mom.

He/she is not yet here but I’ve started living the pain on his/her behalf. I don’t know what I would do if my husband one day told him he wasn’t chosen, so I told my husband, “We are going to have the child. He’s not going to be different from the rest. You’ll learn to love him/her because he/she is going to bear your name.”

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

“If you won’t listen to me, you can’t force me to listen to you. Keep it to yourself but when the time comes, we shall see.”

I’m threatened but I’ll keep it nonetheless. This memory is killing me but I want to believe this child would have it differently because s/he will have a mother who will shield him/her away from the storm, if there will be any.

—Adazewa

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