Tag: mother

The Dice#2

Dunni smiled out of her reverie as she was tugged at by one of her young charges. It was hilarious to see her mum struggling with trying so hard not to mention the issue of marriage. Mrs Adesida had received a call from one of their distant cousins to inform her he was getting married and would be bringing his fiancée to see her. As soon as she dropped the phone, she sighed. “That was Moji’s son he is twenty-six and is getting married.” 
Dunni scowled ready to put up as much resistance she could muster should her mother go into her usual “marriage talk” again. However, she shrugged noncommittally. “Good for him.”

“ Is that all you are going to say?” Mrs Adesida asked with a huge disappointment evident on her face.
“Mother what do you want me to say?” Dunni asked exasperatedly.
Mrs Adesida sighed again, heaved and broke into a song and dance as she gave Dunni a hug. “Your visit means a lot to me. I won’t overshadow our time with a quarrel. However, do know that not talking about it does not make it go away.”

Another tug and this time she could hear from a far away distance “Auntie Dunni Auntie Dunni, see my drawing” the young child announced proudly.

Dunni gathered her thoughts together and chided herself was woolgathering while working.

Dunni Adesida volunteered with a young achiever club in the city where she took the ages 7-10 drawing lessons for one hour every Wednesday.
The time with the children was one of the things she looked forward to every week. They were all a delight to work. She never seemed to be more amazed at the kind of work they turned it. Raw talents that need direction and guidance and the world would not know what hit them when the next Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci resurfaces.

Once all the kids had left, Dunni spent the few minutes she had to arrange the room used and out away all the pencils, paintbrushes used .she was so engrossed that she did not hear when her colleague came behind her.
She squealed in fright. ” I did not hear you come in.”
“Sorry I scared you,” Amanda apologised and went on in one breath.
“I came by to let you know that Tooni lost her mum to cancer .”
Tooni was a seven-year-old girl in her class.
“Aww, that is so sad,” said Dunni trying to imagine what her life would have been should she had lost her mother. But she had lost her father at a tender age. She remembered the heaviness and loss that hung around the family like a cloak. She could not wish a loss of a loved one on her enemies, but this was one of the harsh realities of life that even children could not be shielded.

“I never noticed. Tooni has carried on with the same demeanour as she always has. Very excited and enthusiastic about her drawings and the class. She is so friendly with all the other children,” Dunni shared her observation with her colleague.

However, Amanda had a different reason for sharing the loss of the girl’s mother.
“what I am trying to say to you is that you might need to speak a few words of condolence to her dad.”

“ Why?” asked Dunni puzzled. “I rarely see the parents when they come to pick children. You should inform them at the reception.”

“I was thinking it would be a good avenue for you to meet the man. He is a widower, and this might be an opportunity.”
Dunni’s eyes went round as this bizarre scene playing before her. She closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side.  Trying to calm the seething anger welling inside of her.

“How callous can you be. Should I be dumb enough to go with your advice, would it to a man who is mourning the loss of his dear wife? Or do I look like someone on a manhunt, husband hunt or whatever hunt you all think I should embark?”

“No Dunni, you do not look like it, but your life oozes it even if you think you hide it well.”

Tooni did not think she heard Amanda well.


“Amanda, what you have said is not only mean, but it shows that you have never been and cannot be my friend. I am on no manhunt, that I am not married is not a design of mine, that I hope to be married someday might be my mothers wish, but mine is to live my life and enjoy it married or not. So if you think my life oozes manhunt. You have better check again as you sure are receiving wrong signals which might be a reflection of what you are feeling. I thought you were my friend. But now I know better”

“I am your friend Dunni, which is the reason I am concerned. I might be approaching it in a wrong manner and that I apologise”

“I have not asked for your help and please stay away from me,” Dunni responed angrily.


“I am sorry,” Amanda raised her hand in mock defence as Dunni walked away from her without a backward glance.

*****
The birds were chirping away a lovely soprano on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning. Dunni sat out in the garden enjoying the morning sunshine just lazing with a book. How to meet date and marry a guy in 21 days. She bought the book out of curiosity and found the book not only hilarious but crazy.

She still would not accept she was on a manhunt, but sometimes she could not deny the thought of what her life would be like if she were married and had a family.

“I was not going to push any buttons like go look for any man, but there might be some information that could be helpful in this book,” she reasoned.

“Good morning Madam,” Sule the security man cum gardener called out.

Sule has been with Dunni ever since she moved into the area. He joined her as a single man, got married and went on to have five children that often left Dunni in wonder how he coped with living expenses on his meager salary.

Good morning Sule,” Dunni responded, curious about the smile on his face.
“Sule you look so happy today, what can I do for you?”

“Ha Madam, I been happy wai! I get Amarya coming to me. He responded in his poor English mixed with his local Hausa language.
‘Amarya,” Dunni called out, with a questioning look and a frown on her brows and eyes mirroring her confusion.
“Yes Oga Madam, Amarya. My second wife.”
The book Toke was holding felt from her hands as she gazed at the man in bewilderment.
“Sule, you are getting married again?” she croaked in disbelief.

“Yes, Oga madam. My Amarya is a beautiful young girl and from my village. She would come and help Uwargida with all the housework and children.”

“But Sule, you have five children, and you are barely coping financially. Another wife means more children. How do you intend to take care of them?”

Sule smiled so stupidly, Dunni felt like slapping the smile off his face. What illiteracy could do to a man transcends beyond his generation? He was building a village without any means of giving those children a means to prepare for the future

“Allah will take care of the children. Oga madam. Do not worry.”

Too dumbfounded for words, Dunni went back to reading her book but the sanctity of the moment had been broken. She found herself on the same page for ten minutes as her mind kept processing what Sule had told her.

She was shocked when she looked up, and he was still there.
“Sule?”
“Oga Madam I’d been wan tell you that our neighbour,” he paused pointing to the walled house on her right.

Dunni recalled the walls were not always this high when she first moved in ten years ago. You could literally have a conversation with your number over the fence but as the years when by, the walls got taller and taller. You had neighbours, you had no clue what they looked like even if you met in the shopping mall.
Lowering his voice as if he was aware of someone one on the other side was listening to their conversation.
“His wife have died.“
“His wife died,” Dunni corrected wondering why she bothered.
“His wife died,” he repeated proudly.

She shook her head. The man never ceases to amaze her. Somedays, he would speak impeccable English, and some other days she would cringe as he mixed both present and past tenses interjecting the wrong verbs or adjectives.
“I been say you suppose to greet him. As his wife died, if he wants to marry, he go marry you.”
She cursed on her breath with the little Hausa words she had been able to garner from her security “shege danbanza dan buro uba,”

“Oga Madam,” Dunni was shocked he still dared to stand there like he had dementia.
If it was in the office, the man was as good as fired. She fumed under her breath.
“Sule, Please leave now before I do what both of us would regret,” she gritted her teeth as she picked her glass cup of orange juice, book and walked back to the house leaving behind a shattered serenity.  Her world is being thrown into a topsy-turvy.

The one moment her mother was struggling to stop the pressure, her friends and gardener took over the baton. She did not know which was worse but that of the gardener sucked more.

The Dice #1

The blue sky so vibrant did not mask the feeling of dread that engulfed Dunni as she meandered the drive into her Mother’s residence. There was no admiration for the beautiful cut flowers that surrounded the house or the magnificent trees that walled both sides of the drive. She had designed the house while her mother with her green thumb had done wonders to the driveway and the gardens. In an area mainly covered with cement and concrete, theirs stood out with every kind of trees, shrubs, flowers in different shades of colours that heralded a beauty so pure calling the inner you to a feeling of peace and calm the world no longer experienced freely.

Coming home was one of Dunni’s favourite things to do, but recently she was getting weighed down by her mother’s constant barging on her single state.
She has the words from their last conversation in her head for days till she thought she was going crazy. Suddenly it felt the whole world around her was conspiring to push her over the edge to the marriage cliff with little or no regard how she got there. It seemed she could marry a dog for all they care. Just bring a Mr something to change your status and complete who you are.

“Dunni, you are not growing any younger. At your age I was married and had Gbile your brother was 15, Bukky 14, Taiye and Kehinde were already 12, Bola was 11, and you were 7.”
“Mami, your time was different from ours o!” Dunni emphasised. “Did you not tell me your parents were the ones that arranged your marriage with Baami?”

“Not really, your father was a family friend, he proposed, I liked him, and my parents were happy for us to get married.

“If you want me to arrange one for you. I can.”

“Ah, mami koto be,” Dunni was quick to reply in their local language meaning, “It has not come to that. My time will come,” she went on to reassure her mother.

“My time will come, is what you have been telling me for over ten years. Do you want me to go to the grave without cuddling my grandchildren?”

“Mami you have almost twenty-one grandchildren with Bola’s fourth child on the way,” Dunni argued.

“It’s your grandchildren I want. Grandchildren can never be enough.”
Mami folded her hands across her bosom and pushed her chin forward challenging her youngest daughter.

Mami, as her children fondly called her, was the matriarch of the Adesida family. She lost her husband in her early forties and was left to take care of the children alone. A teacher then at the government local primary school in the nineties, there was not much income the profession could bring, but she traded alongside to ensure her children got the best education.

There were nights of endless tears and hunger, but she encouraged her children to be the best they could be, strive to ace their studies and dream big. The season would pass quickly. And true to her words, looking back, the years passed quickly, although it did not seem so while going through the hardship.

Toni had barely gotten to the driveway when her mum ran out of the house retying her wrapper that was threatening to fall. Dressed in navy blue leaf pattened Ankara Buba and Iro attire. She looked warm and elegant. Dunni smiled as she watched the excitement on her mother’s face forgetting every apprehension she felt as she drove into the gates.

Mrs Adesida always welcomed her children home with this same warmth and excitement. She never failed to make homecoming a big affair for her children. Whenever they arrived back from school in their younger days, her welcome always put to shame the welcome ceremony for the visit of Queen of England to Nigeria in 1956.

Mami treated her children and everyone around her with love, dignity and value. She has always been an epitome of kindness and hospitality. She was rarely seen to be offended, and you could not stay angry at her for too long.
Dunni, felt the lift in her spirit as she got out of the car and fell into her mother’s warm embrace. All worries of Mami’s nagging vanished into thin air.

“My beautiful mum. The best mum in the whole world” she eulogised.
Mami, are you growing younger? You are looking more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

She slapped her daughter gently on the shoulder, “Dunni, you had better start talking, with all your patronising, there seems to be something you want from me,” Mami joked with a twinkle in her eyes.
Should it had been possible, you would have seen her blushing through her dark skin.

Mami was a beauty queen in her younger days, not the ones ran by the National beauty pageants but the one acclaimed by her village. There had been many requests for her hand in marriage from the eligible young men at that time. However, she settled for, a friend to her cousin she met at one of the village festivals, during his visit for the holidays from the university much to the chagrin of the young men in the village.

The years had not been kind to Mami with the death of her husband and the curve balls thrown her way, but she had aged with grace and beauty.

“No, Mami, I don’t need anything. It is a fact you are beautiful, inside out.”

“Let’s go inside, I have prepared pounded yam with egusi soup, stockfish and bushmeat for you.”

“Mami, my size six figure is on the verge of extinction with all that food,” Dunni protested.

“Who? You? Dunni, should you eat a whale you would remain the size you are,” Mami refuted her youngest daughter affectionately.

Dunni might not be married the way she wanted, but the girl was a bundle of accomplishment, beauty, grace and humility.

Mami wiped the tears threatening to fall. Losing her husband almost killed her but looking at the five children they had, she knew she had to be alive and healthy for them. The children had been her motivation to move on in the face of adversity, poverty and lack.

Her labour paid off as they were all doing well in their respective fields and home. Mami could not be happier with their achievement. God had wiped away her misery.

Mami resolved not to engage in any husband talk this visit. She would enjoy their time together. Dunni’s patronising was surely working. She chuckled to herself as she linked her hands in her daughters and they walked into her home.