If only

Chapter 1

So it’s something we all were taught while growing up; “family should be built on love, if there’s no love there’s no trust and if there’s no trust, there’s no family”, but this wasn’t the case of my family. We were this “perfect” family outside, the family with no troubles, the close relationship type of family, a Christian living family. A lot of people looked up to my family, wished to have a family like mine, someone even once said “ I wish God was fair enough, he could have put me in your family” and I just smiled, really, what do you expect me to do apart from smiling? How I wish they knew we were not worthy to be even called a family. We barely knew each other, we were all hypocrites.

I really don’t blame my mum; she is a single parent trying her best not to raise us up the way she was trained. She went through a lot of troubles while she was younger, having a tough person as a mum and having no one to rely on, no one to pour her thoughts too. She got pregnant at a young age, using that as a way of escape from the life she was living. At least my dad was more responsible then, he took her in without the consent of my grandmother, if he didn’t, probably I won’t be alive to tell this story because my mum would have been dead before she even thought of giving birth to me.

My mum had the first child, my brother and that’s where it all started from. My parents are illiterate; education wasn’t really emphasized in those times, they only went through primary school and went into trading or farming which was the only money bringing occupation then.  They had little knowledge of how to manage a family since they were both young, so they brought forth 3 more children after me and my senior brother even though their income was nothing to talk about.

Chapter 2

As my mum told us, my dad began acting weird, he was basically tired of suffering, but can you blame that on anyone? No, of course, he was the head of the family, it’s his duty to bring in money. I don’t blame them actually, I blame their ignorance, they knew nothing, they were still young, where would he get money to cater for 7 people including him?

He decided to leave my mum to cater for us alone in a little room which could barely contain 3 people. My mum had nowhere to go; she couldn’t go back to her mum, could she? Except she wanted embarrassment of course, so she tried her possible best, working from morning till night and feeding us in the little way she could. She left us in the care of my brother, the first born, but seriously what can a 16-year-old boy do? A boy with no education or anything. We were always at home, playing with anything we found our hands on and hoping to eat the leftovers of our breakfast when our mum came back. We lived in abject poverty.

Chapter 3

I was the second born but the first girl; I had three little girls to look out for, even though I knew nothing about that, I needed to play that role. Till now I don’t know what or who my mum met that turned our lives around but now we no longer live in abject poverty, we have a house of our own and now we decide to go wherever we want to. My mum no longer goes for morning shifts but night shifts that bring in a lot of money; she stays at home all day but goes out when it’s towards evening.

 I walked up to her one day and asked her what work she was doing but she brushed me aside as she always did, “there’s no need to worry, God has done the marvelous” was what she always said, at least we were not suffering I should be grateful for that.

Even with the money, I was used to the lonely life I was living, I had friends, yeah, but I was still lonely. We held 0% relationship in the family, my mum was just all about bringing money into the home, not understanding the fact we needed her the most in our teenage years. My brother was just concerned about his feeding and his social life, his friends were basically more important than us. We all just woke up in the same house, greeted, did the house chores and went back to minding our business.

Chapter 4

As usual, my mum went to work, my brother went for his usual outing and I was the only one left at home. My three little sisters attended extra lessons after school; as they started school quite too late for their age and they needed to catch up. I was in my final year in secondary school, waiting for the forthcoming senior WAEC. And my brother, well, that one lived in a world of his own, going out when he felt like, keeping rebellious friends and also acting like one.

He knew how to go about it; he was a hypocrite (a good one for that matter). My mum trusted him with all her heart, why wouldn’t she even trust him? He was the one that everybody loved, trusted; a very good boy they thought he was. He was one of the good teenagers in church “the bible scholars”, the one that participated in all church activities, the head of the teenage ushers. The fact he was the leader and had a close relationship with them in few weeks made me wonder if the rest were not the people that sneaked every night to smoke at the uncompleted building in my street, who knows? They might be the one; at least their leader feranmi was good at pretending, so why won’t they be.

one day I walked up to my mum and told her what feranmi engaged himself in but I received a slap as a compliment. She accused me of jealousy, that I always doubted everybody, looking for the bad sides in them, for God sake why won’t I? We are a family! I should know everything about them, I responded. But my response worsened the case cause from that day she started ignoring me, like, what mother ignores her child? Yet she preaches to the children every Sunday never to keep malice.

Well, I was getting frustrated and devastated, I couldn’t live in the house any longer, I couldn’t keep up with strangers but where could I run to? I didn’t know the whereabouts of my father and I never got to meet any of my relations, I had to continue suffering, I just had to.

Chapter 5

Months into the discussion I had with my mum concerning feranmi, situations started changing as everyone was beginning to relate, at least that was what I always wished for. Feranmi stopped sneaking out at night and my mum decided to stop work for a while to have time with us. To be honest, those were the best times in my life, I never imagined happiness in our home but now that I’m experiencing it, my prayer is for it to never stop.

Feranmi was a nice guy, he was also very intelligent. All he needed was for someone to pay attention and also to guide him. He needed a companion just like I did; probably that’s why he confided in the wrong people because at that time there were the only people there for him. We got talking and I discovered that he was really a nice guy, for the 16 years I lived with him, I never knew I had such a nice brother. My mum, a wonderful woman trying all her best to make a great home, I had three such wonderful sisters that were always there to cheer me up. I had a wonderful family.

If only she knew right from time that money wasn’t all that was needed in our family, if only she knew we needed love. It was already too late because feranmi had included himself in so many secret acts which started showing forth; the police came to arrest him this morning for the murder of Late chief akinyomi, the man that my mum slept with almost every night just to bring in money to the house.

Seems that feranmi found out what my mum did for a living, so he decided to kill him. My mum had to stop work because there wasn’t any work any longer and feranmi had to stay low also because he knew he killed an influential person, It was at this period everything went well in my family, cause they were both at home. And to be very honest, even if it was for a short while, I enjoyed every bit of it.

Truly, my mum knew nothing about feranmi killing chief akinyomi but what could she do to stop the trial? Feranmi was sentenced to die by hanging and my mum was shattered, crying her eyes out. I looked at my mum crying uncontrollably like she wasn’t the cause of all this, I couldn’t blame her, could I? Yes, I could, she could have decided to continue the job she had then, at least we were fairing enough and she had time for us. She could have had eyes on feranmi and he wouldn’t have become the person he is, she would have loved us and not cared only about money. She wouldn’t have useless herself all in the name of money, but deep down I keep on asking myself, can I blame her? Would I have done the same if I were to be in her shoes? I really don’t know and I really can’t tell. If only all parents would understand that a good relationship is needed between them and their children, If only they can understand.