There’s a photo of an aged woman found wandering and looking lost at the bus stop of Silverbird Galleria in Lagos being circulated on WhatsApp. It says the woman, in her 70s, had been found by good Samaritans, she was disoriented and unable to tell her own name and where she lives. That is someone’s mother, her children are probably looking for her, I am hopeful they will find her in this age of the internet and social media, we were not so lucky.
Twenty-three years ago, my mother upped and left the house…forever! She left behind five children, three boys and two girls ages 25-17 years. I am the youngest child. My mother was in her early sixties.
The year my mother disappeared, I was in SS2 at the time. I came home at about 6 pm in the evening from soccer practice, I normally go after school hours on Fridays.
I came home to meet my eldest sister, Aminat with deep furrows on her brow. Her eyes were red and wild from tears and fear. She said, ‘They said Mummy left the house in the morning and has not returned!’
Sister Amina, our eldest had moved out of the house at that time but because she lives a few streets away, she comes by to check on our mother almost every day.
It looked like a planned exist. Her favourite bag was gone, plus a few personal items. My mother’s exit was a shock to me and my family; we didn’t take it well; many days and nights after her sudden disappearance, my family would return empty-handed from searching around mortuaries, hospitals, public places, and private homes. We always carried her photo and showed people, just in case someone had sighted her.
She just disappeared
Nobody seemed to have seen her; few reported seeing her at the Tejuoso main market; that’s before the market was pulled down and rebuilt into a huge modern mall. That place is always rowdy and I’m sure even ghosts came to shop there. Of course, we went there, we looked, we called out, we put her photo and our address for people who might have seen her help find her; yes, we reported to the police…nothing…for months…then years.
After about 18 months of her disappearance, we came to the conclusion that she must have died somewhere or perhaps she was involved in an accident. We couldn’t accept that she walked away from us, she loved us all fiercely, there is never a doubt about this even to this day.
For many years, I would wake up in a cold sweat; I would look at every slim-framed woman who walked with a slight limb, expecting her to be my mother; I would pause to look at every fair-skinned woman in public places just to check if it was my mother.
At the university, my roommates have shaken me awake several nights when I cry out from my sleep. They say I always call ‘Mummy, mummy…come back!’
Is Mother dead? Is she alive? I am certain she can’t remember her way home again. I am certain she wants to come home again.
Mother was never to leave the house in the first place; she had been banned from leaving the house by herself by our father, an ex-military man. You see, our mother had been battling a disease of the mind; it’s called Alzheimer’s.
I recall at the beginning, Mother would simply forget events, places, and things…she increasingly began to get disoriented, and would find simple tasks frustrating, this caused plenty of quarrels between her and our father back then before we knew she truly had a problem and that she just wasn’t being stubborn about these things.
I think Mother sensed something was horribly wrong with her; she began to write down things she suspects she might forget; like names, places, food items, where she keeps her money, you know, little things like that. Then years later, she would forget immediate incidents, like saying she hadn’t been to church for weeks when she may just have returned from service; like whether or not she had eaten and what she actually ate minutes before she was asked what food she ate. She, however, could recall past events with so much clarity and would relate past events with details; these were the yoyo years; there would be long moments of lucidity and moments of absolute forgetfulness!
My father sought help; that was when she was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s. Afterward, our father instructed all of us never to let Mother out of the house, beyond allowing her to take walks in our huge compound, he said to us that day, “If she goes out on her own, she may not be able to find her way home ever again!”
I didn’t understand the full import of these words. I was a boy given to much play; I think I was about 12 years or thereabout. I was unconcerned with the things of the home because I had two elder brothers and two sisters above me who sorted things out. I had a father who was the Lord of his house, so I didn’t have to be a part of the watchmen over my mother.
I recall the few lucid moments when Mum would tell us she didn’t want to be a burden to us. I have often heard her praying in her room to God to help her children should anything befall her. I didn’t even understand what she was saying then; I thought she was already in good hands with her family.
So these days when I muse over that day of her disappearance. I imagine that she was lucid enough to deceive whoever was at home into thinking she was just taking a stroll around our wide gated compound; she must have stowed a few clothes in her small bag; she must have been determined never to come back. She must have wanted to spare us the pain of watching her slowly degenerate from the disease. It’s truly painful to watch a loved one go this way.
How come she went so far we still don’t know for sure if she is still alive today?
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)