I never met my grandma because my mother never let us; she never let us and she herself never even went to visit grandma nor was she on speaking terms with grandma, till the old woman died. I heard bits and piece of what might have gone down between my grandma and my mother from my aunties and uncles.
It had to do with my grandma leaving my mum and her siblings with her husband and marrying another man.
Mum is the eldest of her siblings and she took it really bad because whereas her siblings seemed to be on good terms with their mum, mum chose not to.
As I grew older, I tried to get my motherโs version but she wouldnโt even allow me say grandmaโs name, bring up the issue or discuss it whatsoever.
On the other hand, I couldnโt get any word from my grandma because I was still quite young. I didnโt begin to try to reach out to my grandma until I left the country to study abroad. I was already at the university, I had my independence and could speak to anyone I wanted to without my motherโs interference plus I needed answers to my own nagging pain.
When I tried to reach out to grandma, I discovered she wasnโt keen on technology plus she had become rather senile; so talking on the phone with her was a tad difficult.
Now, in my younger years, when I went on holidays to my aunties and uncles, I got to know that my mum blames her mum for all the atrocities that befell them after she left. Grandma remarried, she became quite wealthy in fact, with many houses and shops to her name but her kids from her first marriage didnโt benefit much from it until their father died.
I had also heard several stories where family members had tried to resolve the issue between my mum and her mother and many times, I heard it just collapsed with both women ending up spewing hurtful words at one another.
At the end of the day, even after my grandma died, my mum never told me exactly what her mother did to hurt her so badly that she vowed ever to speak to her again.
So why am I telling you this?
History has a way of repeating itself, I think.
My mum left my father, however, she didnโt abandon us with my dad, instead, she raised us by herself. Unlike in her own situation, though my father wasnโt present in the house with us, he was responsible for all our upkeep, financially and even at school, everyone knew my dad. I do not blame either of my parents for what happened between them, I think thatโs their problem, not mine, however, something happened to me before I left Nigeria. It affected me deeply and itโs the reason why today, my mum and I donโt talk!
Now, you see me looking wild, colourful hair, tattoos and all that; I didnโt just wake up to be like this and this isnโt because I schooled abroad!
I was molested as a child and all I wanted was for my mum to hug me and tell me everything was going to be ok!
Let me explain.
I was still in primary 5 when my dad left. I was 10 years old then; I was a quiet child; I liked to read novels and watch TV; that was my thing. I had two younger ones to care for anytime my mum went out.
Now, we had this neighbour, who was a bachelor awas friendly with my mum; would hang out with us over the weekend and many times when my mum worked late, she would ask him to pop in to check on us; Uncle Sly, we called him and he was a Sly character!
Uncle Sly knew I liked to read, I would sit in a corner and devour volumes and volumes of books and forget myself and my siblings I was meant to watch.
One day, I was on one of those voluminous books that he bought for me to read; my mum had asked me to fry fish and get things ready for her to cook stew. We had run out of vegetable oil and I couldnโt be bothered with going out to buy vegetable oil; my mother always left money for us, just in case we needed to buy something.
That day, palm oil on the fire I dropped the fish even before the oil was hotโฆyou know, as a kid, I was just likeโฆ who has time to watch this one, put everything on the fire and come check it laterโฆ
My sister that was what I did, then I forgot and buried myself in my novel!
Hot palm oil , fire and fish shooting oil all over the place on a gas burner, unattendedโฆreal fire crackers!
There was fire but I didnโt even know, until I saw a huge plume of smoke and heard my siblings shouting, โfire, fireโฆโ We all just ran out of the house.
Uncle Sly came from downstairs and ran into the kitchen to put out the fire! The whole kitchen was black; that the cylinder didnโt explode is a mysteryโฆbut I was too young to understand the import of all these at that time.
All I knew was my mother would kill me if she came back home that day! That fear filled me with so much dread, I was crying as if I had been burnt.
But thankfully or not, Uncle Sly came to the rescue; when he put out the fire, he took us to his flat and came back up to clean the kitchen; when he came back, I was still in so much tears and was just praying to die before my mother came back!
Uncle Sly told me not to worry, he said he would tell my mum he sent me on an errand and he forgot the fish on the fireโฆand thatโs what happened. In fact, he helped fix our kitchen; new cooker, new ceiling, new cabinetโฆI was forever grateful and I became forever indebted to himโฆthat was why when he began to molest me, I felt I was paying for my debt!
I couldnโt tell my mum at first.
If I he did, he would tell on me too.
This continued for a few months, until my father sent me to boarding house and there I became safe. When I came home for holidays, he would start to get fresh with me; I still feared my mother’s wrath, so I kept mute.
Years later, I tried to tell my mum because she had begun to have a relationship with this Uncle; but my mum would brush me aside. All I wanted was for mum to hear me, hug me, even if she didn’t want to stop her relationship with uncle Sly, I wanted her to protect me from him. Instead, my attempts were met with:
โWhat nonsense are you saying?โ
โYou are an ungrateful child!โ
โWho put this mad idea in your head?โ
She never let me finish my story, she never didโฆwith the benefit of hindsight, maybe she knew, and just didnโt want to accept it.
Whenever I came home for holidays, I would avoid Uncle Sly, who despite the fact that he was in my motherโs bed, still wanted to go on molesting meโฆthankfully, it never happened again but the memories of those few months back then haunted me for years, especially with a mother who preferred not to know.
When I finished secondary school, my father shipped me and my siblings abroad, I went for Aโ levels and then university, they finished their secondary school and later Uni.
Thatโs where I vowed to have nothing to do with my mother again! I hurt so much that she would trivalise my pain; that she would chose her boyfriend over me, that she would even suggest I was responsible for the molestationโฆ
So my mother and I, we donโt speak, we never will!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)