Memories
Memories. They are all we can ever hold on to. They are the presents given to us by time wrapped in years and years of quiet forgetfulness or slow remembrance. I do think memories have minds of their own. They choose to come and go as they please. I will never understand the science of how they are formed but I like to think of them as bodies, fully in control and possessing the ability to direct its own path.
While some memories choose to stay, others choose to slowly fade away as time passes. For the memories that chose to stay, we hold them jealously with our minds on guard, praying, wishing we would never forget the faces of the actors in those memories. We pray we would never forget how they smiled at us or how we watched light come into their eyes after we said a nice word.
I have a lot of memories from when I was a child. When I had barely come to know what complexities this thing called life had to offer. When Saturday mornings meant hours and hours of staring open-eyed at the KKB Show and laughing at Tom and Jerry’s antics. I remember when being Ada simply meant being alive, eating and sleeping. Those times when I did not have a care in the world of how my decisions turned out or what consequences they might incur.
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I remember with the most familiar longing our Sunday mornings and evenings. On Sunday mornings, mummy was always on some kind of high. How she managed to get each and every one of us ready for church with our shirts tucked in and our hair combed in record time still beats me.
My mother was and is still is, a typical African woman. A fantastic homemaker. It was almost like her worth rested on how clean the kitchen countertop was or how the whiteness of the toilet glimmered and trust me, she was always trying to reinstate her worth. Before the beginning of the morning mass by 6:30am, mummy had done all the chores, bathed my siblings and I, gotten us dressed and managed to stuff our mouths each with one slice of bread coated in butter. All this while, with her Sunday attire firmly grabbing to her features. I miss seeing mummy like that.
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She used to do her chores so fluidly with a smile forever plastered on her face. I knew she enjoyed them because how else do you explain the sudden bounce in her steps after she had finished her house chores. She would look around the house with a satisfied smile and start singing. These days, all she does is frown and order people around.
By the time we all left in Daddy’s old Volvo, the house and her children were squeaky clean and then she starts to sing an old hymn in the car. Mummy only sang when her heart was full, everybody knew. She didn’t have what you might call a sonorous voice but when she sang, she sang with so much depth and passion that you had no choice but to listen.
I cannot remember the lyrics of the old hymn she sang on Sunday mornings. I never go to church anymore but I can never forget how she sang it. Every note was belted with so much peace and soothing calmness that for some reason forced myself and my siblings to be calm. We would rest our newly oil sheened heads on Daddy’s old interior and listen to mummy’s voice slowly wash over us in a dreamlike state. Daddy never said anything too. He was always content in humming alongside her singing. They were the perfect team. No word was ever said in the car on Sunday mornings on our way to the 6:30am mass, but those mornings were the highlight of my week as I felt like in those moments, I had a near communion with the spirits.
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I owed my Sunday evenings to Daddy. Since he worked from Monday to Saturdays, Sundays were his moments of respite and he was always in high spirits. I could never remember everything that made him laugh but I remember the tune of it. It was loud, deep and to be more honest, sounded more like a growl than a laugh. But it was also sweet and genuine and his stomach quaked as he laughed. I remember loving to hold his stomach whenever he was laughing. As soon as I heard Daddy laughing, I bolted from wherever I was and hugged him, making sure to rest my head on his protruding stomach. Then he would hold me close and quake and I would feel his quake also make me shake. It was my favorite place in the world.
Daddy would sit with us on Sunday evenings and talk with us. We would tell him about school, about our friends and about all the evil tactics our grade teacher devised to trick us out of our lunch. My daddy always laughed, he never scolded. That department was mummy’s major preoccupation and I never held it against her. To be honest, we almost drove the woman crazy.
Now, life has happened and mummy no longer sings on Sunday mornings. She doesn’t even go to the morning mass anymore. She goes to the evening mass, if at all. Daddy’s old Volvo gave up when I was 15. He has a new car now, a Mercedes that does not feel like home. Daddy is also old now but he still works. So, he spends all the time he can get alternating between eating and resting. The Sunday evening tradition was long gone. Even the belly laugh is gone and the rare times when they come, they are over before I get to where he is to hold him, as if holding him wouldn’t be weird in the first place.
I miss the times when hugging my father was not weird and immature, and sitting at my mother’s feet watching her sew her blouse for the umpteenth time was not deemed as time wastage, and a result of having nothing productive to do with my life.
I am 23 years old already but some days, I feel 50. Some days when the responsibilities come bearing down my throat in full force threatening to crush my peace of mind and leave me with no reprieve.
This is not a sob story. No, far from it. This is just me reminiscing; this is just me acknowledging how much I miss being a child. This is me standing on middle ground with parallels of my life on either side. On one side is the time of my life when I was young, free and unbothered, on my other side is now, when life stands boldfaced, looking right into my soul.
Why do I miss those days so much? You might ask. I am not sure either. I think it is because of all the things I’ve had to let go of in exchange for the sake of ‘assumed’ maturity. I’ve lost friendships to this cancerous idea of ‘growing up’. Her name is Ewa.
I would have loved to be angry or bitter as I recount our story but I would be lying if I fail to acknowledge the gift that she was, the length of time regardless. The memory of our friendship is one gift memory placed in the arms of my mind. Ewa.
Ewa was my very first friend in the whole world. We used to run and play from the moment I knew how to move my legs.
Her father was a Merchant and they had just moved to Lagos from the East. They needed a firm footing and guidance and my father was there to provide this for them. In the beginning, they had to live with us in our two-room apartment until they could find a good place to stay. During that time, myself and Ewa were both only children. It was at that point when we had to do almost everything together since we were age mates, that our bond started to grow. My mum used to tell me that on days when either of the mothers decides to take the both of us out, we always got admiration from onlookers who thought we were twins. Sometimes, we even got monetary gifts.
We would eat from the same plate and wear the same clothes. It was not until the end of their first year with us that they moved. My mother always remembered that memory with fondness. She told me how she never believed she could live with a Yoruba person under the same roof and be able to bear it.
Before Ewa’s family moved in, my mother told me that she had a big fight with my father. She was scared because of the rumours she had heard about Yoruba people and their perchance for dirt. She threatened to move out with me if they ever moved in, but she finally came to see reason with my father. On the day they were to move out, my mother told me how she bawled her eyes out as she had come to see Ewa’s mother as her own sister and Ewa as her daughter.
“She had the most loving character. Never disturbed, never made a fuss and was always helpful around the house. I was really sad to see her go.” My mother told me a long time ago.
She also told me about how I fell ill after Ewa moved out. I just took on a sudden fever and would only ease up when Ewa was close. Neighbors claimed that, that was my own way of saying I needed a sibling, but even years after my siblings came we remained inseparable.
As we grew older, I liked to believe that our bond grew stronger. But I can only speak for myself. Ewa translated to Beauty and she was a true testament. Hers was an uncommon beauty. She had a slightly chubby frame, slowly bordering on being fat but she managed to make it look beautiful. She had, and still has the smallest mouth I have ever seen. It looked like it was permanently puckered for a kiss. I just thought it made her look cute. She started growing breasts before me. In fact, she did everything before me even though we were agemates. She became a pseudo older sister, lecturing me on everything I needed to know because she had gone through the same.
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We started drifting apart when boys came into the picture. They seemed to take all of her time and she had none to spare for me. If I complained, she made it a point of duty to inform me of how whiny I sounded and how I would never be able to marry her, no matter how much we loved each other. I thought that was really uncalled for but I chose to say nothing.
Then life happened.
She got into the university before I did and everything that used to be our relationship dissolved like it never existed.
Today, I saw Ewa and I think she saw me but I cannot be sure. Pride has been known to be a major cause of blindness. I waved and waved at my friend, hoping to catch her eye and see her smile warmly at me again. I like to tell myself that she did not see me wave and that slow turn of her head in the opposite direction was just by chance. Memories, like I’ve said before have minds of their own and this one has chosen to stay even though I would like nothing more than for it to be erased completely.
Memories of when we were young and free, unbothered about what society thinks and unperturbed about their reactions when we do not subscribe to their values. I miss those days.
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