VILLAGE RAM

Dear Taiwo,
Please, help me, I believe there is the need for me to act fast before my mother dies of heartache.

I am a regular reader of your column, and I read with dismay, the story of Itunu, which ran for two weeks on this page.

It is a pity the way her mother treated her. It is such a shame, because a good mother is like a precious stone and the best gift God can give to anyone on earth. Anyone who does not have a good mother is very unfortunate.

Her story, however, gave me the encouragement and conviction that I have a duty towards my mother. It woke me from my deep slumber of self-pity and moved me into action. Because she is a rare gem and must not be allowed to suffer the way she is now because of my father’s betrayal. I need a solution to the serious problems going on in our home now and above all, prayers for my mother so that she can take the right decision and live.

I am a final year student in one of Nigeria’s most prestigious universities and I have always known our home to be a place filled with love, joy, laughter and fun until a fateful day, when I overheard my father’s conversation with one of our neighbours over the issue of their housemaid.
My mother, a nurse worked at one of the federal institutions, which often took her away from home on night duties.

Whenever she had to go on night duty, taking care of my siblings became my responsibility. Before this day, I used to wonder why my mother did not employ a housemaid, just like the other families in the neighbourhood where we lived.

We stayed in a building, with four different flats and almost every other family then had a maid.

I was not too young. I was in Junior Secondary School (JSS) Three. I did not grow up to know my father like every other children. My father left my mother to take care of my two siblings and I when we were very young. He left her for overseas to study and work; but he neither communicated nor sent money to us for years. He left when my youngest sibling was just a baby. I grew up with the feeling that he was dead, but my mother always said he was alive and he would come back.

He did, precisely when I was in JSS One. I heard all that happened our father left mum on the pretext of going abroad to study and work. He actually went with another woman, and came back like a prodigal son, when the relationship went sour.

While he was away, mum took care of us single- handed. Family members and friends intervened and dad came back to us. Of course, we all loved the fact that he came back, and that our family became whole again. He had no job, mum became the bread winner.

Trust her, ever hardworking, she never complained. She resolved to doing some extra work so as to make ends meet.

She opened a small chemist shop in our neighbourhood, where she sold drugs and treated people for small ailments. Days before I heard of daddy’s atrocities, my mother called our neighbour’s attention to the fact that something was wrong with Rashidat, her housemaid. I heard mummy telling her to do something about the odour emanating from Rashidat’s body, she replied and told my mother, that she had also noticed and it kept baffling her because she could not fathom what befell rashidat. Mummy promised to look into the cause. but she was unable to do this immediately, because of her shift throughout that week.

Three days after mummy’s discussion with our neighbour, daddy had a visitor. I was supposed to be sleeping after putting my siblings to bed, but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have made any issue of our neighbours’ visit, if they had not asked daddy if my siblings and I were asleep as we must not hear what they came to discuss with him. When I heard this, I pretended to have slept, especially when daddy came to check on us.

I heard them discussing with daddy, when the couple queried their housemaid, when they percieved that all was not well with her and they stated mummy’s observation too. They however, learnt that my daddy impregnated Rashidat and gave her some drugs to abort the pregnancy. The odour oozing out of her, was as a result of incomplete abortion. However, daddy must act fast before the girl died or something tragic happened to her.

Our neighbour’s wife insisted on telling my mother, but her husband warned her not to as their mission was not to disrupt our home.

They left after daddy promised to get some money so that Rashidat would be taken to the hospital for proper treatment. You would not believe that my mother was the one who eventually took Rashidat to a private hospital after she was told that she was pregnant and took some drugs to abort the pregnancy and that the stench from her was a result of incomplete abortion. At this stage, I wanted to tell my mother all I heard, but my immediate younger brother warned me against doing so because of what it could cost our family. I told him all I overheard when he woke up the following morning.

Dear Taiwo,
My brother advised that I should not tell mum because of how she would feel about it. I want to believe that I should have told her, you won’t believe that she was the one who took Rashidat to the hospital for treatment and she did without collecting a dime from our neighbours. I really did not know if daddy eventually gave them money.

All along, mum was building her own house, we, however, had to move in at a time the place was not really ready because of daddy’s behaviour. I want to believe his idleness contributed to his attitude, because if a man had no job and yet has enough to eat and drink, he was bound to have enough energy to go about chasing women. What I really did not understand is why mummy kept on condoning daddy. Now, despite the fact that she is dying slowly, she has refused to send daddy packing.

Something happened that actually sent us out of where we were living which made us to move into an uncompleted building.

I came home from school one afternoon. There was pandemonium in our apartment. Our landlady,someother women and Rashidat’s boss too were in our apartment. I never knew daddy could stoop so low to impregnate another housemaid. I thought they were discussing Rashidat’s issue, but when I heard what daddy did again, I was ashamed.

The landlady made so much noise that she attracted even outsiders and as dad tried to deny the allegation, Rashidat’s boss kept referring to her maid’s issue and it became a serious issue. Daddy shouldn’t have denied, when he knew he was guilty.

Mummy was on morning duty; my fear was for her not to stumble on the mess, as daddy knew how to clean up his sordid deals before she shows up all the time. Unfortunately, she walked in and witnessed the whole mess. If I were her, I would have kept quiet, but she made the mistake of defending daddy, her defence got Rashidat’s boss so angry that she gave mummy every detail of what happened to her maid and the fact that daddy was responsible for the pregnancy.

She refused to believe until I told her it was true; I did this because I wanted her to stop talking and allow these people to leave our house.

When they had all left, mummy wanted all the details; I told her and my brother confirmed my story when he returned from school.

I really did not know how this issue was settled, but we had to move out of the area to our uncompleted building.

We were there when my mother completed the house and made it habitable. Daddy eventually, decided to go to the school of evangelism; he said he wanted to go into the Lord’s vineyard. We all believed that this decision would make daddy a better person. This, however, did not help because he was asked to leave the school as a result of another sex scandal, can you imagine this?

As if this was not enough, recently daddy was accused of impregnating two female teenage members in our church. One of them is not even as old as I am. Can you imagine this? What can one make out of this? If he wasn’t my father, I would say this was made up, but this is a man who is supposed to be my father. Don’t you think he has a fundamental problem?

My grouse, however is, why has mummy continued to keep up with him? This last one is really killing her; she stopped going to church. She has really changed, and also hardly speaks with any of us.

Couldn’t she ask daddy to leave? Why does she continue to keep up with him at the expense of her happiness? I am yet to find answers to these questions.

Another thing I don’t understand is what daddy’s problem really is? Mummy tries her best to give him whatever he needs despite the role reversal, the poor woman is killing herself to train us, and see how she is being repaid.

Please, how can I help my mother? I don’t want to lose her prematurely, please, help.

Anonymous