Dear MIMsters: My Mother Has Suffered So Much And All I Want to Do Is Take Care of Her

All I want is to see my mother who has suffered so much being cared for.

I am happy with the way stories about these evil DILs are coming out. I have bottled this story I am about to share with your readers up for over five years now, and that is majorly because I did not want people to say I am jealous of my elder brother’s wife.

We are age mates and I am still single, moreover, the first time I ever stated my displeasure at what my brother and his wife did to my mother, my aunty had said to me,

“Gloria! Gloria!! Gloria!!! How many times I call you?”

Three times, aunty,” I responded.

“Leave ya mama matter. No be today she just dey suffer. If she no gree die since all these years wen ya papa dey beat am, no kin bad thing fit kill ya mama again o. Na suffer head ya mama carry come this world! Make you go face ya own life. Man you no bring come house for common introduction not to talk of marriage, na ya brother marriage you dey pock nose put. Abeg, face ya life. Go out go look for husband first because Ekanem and hin wife, Roli matter no concern you. You hear me so?!” Aunty Rose said to me.

Aunty Rose is my mother’s only surviving sister, and even she has given up on my mother ever being shown some genuine love on this side of life.

My mother married my father fifty years ago and we, their children grew up seeing her beaten for every reason there is; even flimsy reasons as forgetting to put off the backyard bulb during the day fetched my mother at least a slap!

My father’s hands were never far from mama’s face but we never saw her cry nor complain. She would just stand like a statue while my father would be beating her. After a while, it became a normal thing in our eyes because after father would have pummeled her, she would enlist our help in appealing to father to forgive her of her ‘sins’. As teenagers, we all spent more time on our knees begging my father on behalf of my mother than we did begging God to forgive us our sins.

My father was the lion of the tribe of our house. He is so full of himself. He is one of the reasons I have refused to settle down with any man. Once any boyfriend of mine shouts at me, I will pick up my shoes, dust them and run for my life. I have vowed that no man shall shout at me and go scot free not to mention raise his filthy hands on me and I mean it. I will rather be single all my life than live life the way my mother is doing.

We all had our tertiary education far away from home and no one returned home after graduation. Although all my brothers returned to the same town our parents lived in, none of them returned to my father’s house. This however was not my own case. I had to return home because I am a girl! Fancy that!

Now in their 70s, my father’s voice alone still resets my mother’s brain. And no matter how stupid my father’s opinion could be, my mother has always been his number one cheer leader. She practically worships the ground her husband walks on.

My parents have seven of us though I am the only female amongst their children and I am the last child. Ekanem is my immediate elder brother. We all stayed in the same town until he was transferred to a Lagos branch of the bank he works with.

When Ekanem and his wife, Roli got to Lagos, they rented a three bedroom flat. Roli had a baby and my mother went to do omugwo for her. Mama had helped Roli raise her first two children so we did not see it as a big deal that she was going for omugwu again. The only difference would be that she would be traveling to Lagos this time around and we were happy about that because she would be free from my father for some months.

Ekanem’s three bedroom apartment was divided thus: the master bedroom for him and his wife. Another room for the children though they didn’t stay there, they slept in their parents’ room and only kept the children’s toys and other ‘jargons’ since they didn’t have a store. Then the third room was being renovated so we erroneously thought it was for mama’s sake. On my mother’s first night at Ekanem’s, she took her luggage into that room but Roli brought them out. She told mama that the room was being renovated for a guest they were expecting. The guest came two days after mama got there, and guess who the guest was? Roli’s elder brother who was visiting from Germany.

My mother was made to sleep in the sitting room close to the noise of their generator for 3 good months!

Can you believe that after Roli’s brother who spent a month with them left, she still did not allow my mother move into that room? By then, she had hired a nanny and she moved the nanny into that room.

My mother would sound sorrowful every time she spoke to me on the phone but if we dared ask her to return home before the three months, my father would know about all she was going through at Ekanem’s and would have made life harder for her, and probably for Ekanem, too. My father believes he alone has the monopoly of maltreating his wife so he was always very aggressive to people who tries to talk down at my mother; including we her children.

Mama bore this shame in her own son’s house for three awful months before she returned home to her customized sorrowful life. Sometimes when I look at her, I am filled with pain. I mean, how can a woman be so ill-treated everywhere she turns?

I pray for God’s blessings and I know my prayers are answered already. I am going to take very good care of my mother. I will treat her like the queen that she really is. I swear!