#children

TEN years since she Died

Ten years since she died

It was April fool’s day 2005. Dike Obiora was forty-two and Tonto Nwankwo was thirty-eight years old. “Sir, Madam has died” says Mallama the house girl. Between their difficult thirteen years of marriage and a dreadful time now ahead, Dike would cling on these dark clouds, perhaps to find and surf their silvery crests. The doctors explained the primary cause of death was heart failure and secondary as cancer of the colon. Tonto had lost the last drop of her blood to the killer tumour which she had fought 18 months long. Crucial on Dike’s mind was their children. How was he to explain these concepts; death and bereavement to them?

“My soul is tired for the things that have been done on it. My body is weak. I am older than my age and sometimes I am ashamed of what you could remember behind this thick love you have for me. I have squandered everything for nothing, not really nothing but what my heart yearns for, though most times I am led to nowhere by it. You have often done more than I could have done for myself; definitely anybody has done for me. The emptiness catches up with me and so often overwhelms me…”

Dike awakes. He finally walks into the room where the children were watching television. They barely noticed him. Confused and wary not to alarm them, he took another deep breath. “Guys, please ‘pause’ the cartoon channel and listen to me for a minute”. As they turned their heads and flashed their pools of clear large eyes towards him, he clinched his hands and took another deep breath.

“God has taken mummy to heaven to rest. You all know that she has suffered a lot this past year and half”
“Yes Daddy” they said. They were merely seven, six and three years old. He was unsure how they were processing the information, but he resolved to be strong for them and to never let them off his sight for a very very long time.

Tonto was a sweet soul whose troubles were overwhelming. Her mind wrinkled as it destroyed her body. Despite her rage and destruction, she was consistently a troubled mind and never a wallowing sordid soul.

“I heard a voice when I was 3 years old. Something told me He was God and that he loved me. I was over joyed and loved it. The days after, I heard it so much as he came around so often, that I began to live in dread of it” she says.

Tonto loved her mother, three sisters and two brothers. They probably loved her more than she felt. But for every other person who tried to love her, the trauma of her natal scourge snuffed every effort to fill her gnawing emptiness.

“I struggle for love, may be because I don’t understand love. Like every child, I want to own my own sisters, brothers and mother. I should have the same surname with my siblings because I share the same womb with them. I want to be theirs. I don’t want to be accepted, because that says something about being an outsider. I don’t want them to be nice to me, because that is about hospitality, may be to a stranger. I want to be them, family, and love, not given but co-owns, not logical but emotional. You understand, don’t you? She asks.

What tears the fabric and tissues of a child’s soul and refuses to heal for 38 years? What wakes a baby from sleep to stack adulthood, and keeps her up for 38 years? moans Dike.

“I hate you Dike. You think am not good for you, you want to marry one of those girls when I die. Good man, you think you have won? I will tell everybody what evil you have been to me. You don’t like me. You snuff off everything I ignite. You don’t encourage me. You are always competing with me. I am never sufficiently good enough at anything. You love your mother, your sister, my mother, my sisters more than me”.
Dike reaches out to love his wife, but sometimes in logic, and once again fails.
“You always make me feel guilty. What is the point of this love when you make me feel am no good? Your love, your mother, everything, even God, yes God, all of you can go to hell”

The phone rings “Hello sister, yes I am fine today… yes, yes. I just want you to know that it is my husband who’s killing me. He is responsible for my illness and death when it comes. Yes, yes. Thank you, sister. I love you too”

Towards the last days, on her death bed, she came near to that conviction that she has now gained her family’s undivided attention. They love her. They are all now preoccupied with her in that special way she has always wanted. If this was it, then she may have lived all her life to get it. She wanted her ‘mommy’ and it was all worth it.

Leonard Chintua-Chigbu
Listening and Creative Communication Artist
BA Fine Art (Painting) University of Benin 1986

These are real life stories. I will love hear your comments,  questions, and suggestions please. Thank you.

AMANDA saw in the Dark

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Amanda was the daddy’s-girl and the first of four girls. She also had two elder brothers. Daddy was another story of an erudite and energetic colonial bred, who was now recessed, by the huge avalanche of mediocrity that was burying our country.

Amanda’s family was struggling with imposed transition, from a life of privilege to one of pauperism. Some members of her family were trapped in the muddle, others were lost and some were hopeful.

In persistent denial, Amanda’s brothers would waste their days in strange battles of conceived entitlements. This was often fuelled by the younger of the brothers’ struggle with some distressing syndrome of hyperactivity.

The colours on their family’s landscape offered no shade of calm, except for her mother and the last baby girl.

Amanda and I met after the university in 1987. On Amanda’s head you could see those tiny brilliant eyes, that still saw in the dark. She spotted me and I was struck by the preciousness of a soul, who must be given the full value of her find. I paid her attention.

Through the years, she talked and I listened. The more she talked, the more I realised she had more to talk about.

Finally she got a job as an air hostess. With the job the scene at home changed for the better. Her family moved from where they had been squatting to a house of their own.

Though her boyfriend couldn’t wait, Amanda was to have a good life and a successful career in the aviation industry.

Leonard Chintua-Chigbu
Listening and Creative Communication Artist
BA Fine Art (Painting) University of Benin 1986

Taruzimaso is a growing community of people who have loved and shared their challenges, and are investing in patience, thought, and prayer to help one another. I have always enjoyed listening, and people have told me how much they have been helped.

Please cheer someone up. Feel free to share your story or stories with the ‘Community’. Make it an interesting, short, compact and well punctuated story. Your candle shines brightest where light is needed, so let it appeal to all people and gender, across racial, political, religious, and sexual orientations.

Your comments and supports are appreciated.

IMELDA doesn’t call Again

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Imelda has called again. Things would have been different if any of us had a manual on how to be angry with God. Since this is not the case, then everything is Dominic’s fault. Imelda believes Dominic can make her happy, but he is not doing that and don’t seem to find any motivation to do so. If some people should have a problem-free marriage, by God, Imelda should be one of them. All she wants is to be allowed to watch one or two movies on the television. The next thing she asks for is for Dominic to sometimes walk with her around the neighbourhood or to the city centre or a bus ride together to some museum or beautiful mall. Of all the difficult things in whole wide world, this has proved so more difficult for Dominic to do.

“I was late to marriage and for that, marrying a widower with children was upfront with needs I could avail myself of. I would care for his children, and he would continue to love me and we will both be happier for it”.

“Why is he ‘ganging up’ with the children against me? Can I possibly understand this? Rationally he knows the teenage girl is impudent and disrespectful. She is determined in her tricks to haunt, ruin my happiness and wreck my marriage”

“Dominic now makes me feel I complain for no reason, and that I just hate his children. Can you believe that?”

“Some days are not worse enough until the night comes when he decides to fiddle under the sheets. Apparently he wants to do me some favours; to give me some happiness I must be quick and grateful to respond to”

“How come I don’t have confidence in myself anymore? My self-esteem is gone and my weight is piling”

In all of these, Imelda looks forward to a future when the children have grown up and left home. Now she doesn’t call me frequently anymore. This could be indicative that the situation has changed or that she has changed enough to take control of the situation or what do you think??? My thoughts and prayers are always with you, Imelda.

Leonard Chintua-Chigbu
Listening and Creative Communication Artist
BA Fine Art (Painting) University of Benin 1986

NINE years since He left Home

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LARRY has tried everything to make his marriage work. He worked hard to keep a job and a roof over their head. His wife and four children were going to be a beautiful, monogamous family he had never quite grown up in.

Amongst his expectations was one that his hard work and dedication to his family, should guarantee him some happiness, and a good family he could be proud of, in the community.

Larry’s wife was not responsive. At least not in ways he expected. She saw the children, the house and everything including Larry as hers. She refused to share, lost every concept of it and felt religiously angry when anybody thought their feelings were equally as important as hers.

Larry often lost his temper and this did not help anything either. He left home, hoping he’d be missed, and he was but not her. He was broken hearted, when days turned to weeks and weeks to months without any letters or emails.

Larry and I met up again, when his first son was about to go to prison. Nine years had gone since he left home. “Those were years of nightmare and a bed made in hell”, he would say. He needed to talk and I was listening. He was also able to hear himself talk. We would meet often. And we would cry often. Though he was never allowed into his own house, he stayed around for them.

A beautiful bloom out of the adversity, the children meet up with him when they desire. No one knows where he stays, but everyone has his phone number. When they meet, sometimes in mutual silence, they share their wishes and deep desire for that one miracle.

Leonard Chintua-Chigbu
Listening and Creative Communication Artist
BA Fine Art (Painting) University of Benin 1986

Taruzimaso is a growing community of people who have loved and shared their challenges, and are investing in patience, thought, and prayer to help one another. I have always enjoyed listening, and people have told me how much they have been helped.

Please cheer someone up. Feel free to share your story or stories with the ‘Community’. Make it interesting, short, compact and well punctuated. Your candle shines brightest where light is needed, so let it appeal to all people and gender, across racial, political, religious, and sexual orientations. A candle is of no use when the sun comes.

Through the years I have remembered you and others who came into my life and flowered it which such beautiful petals. I have understood who I am and what I am to you and all. Thank you so much, knowing the extra value you’ve added to my life. I look forward to listening more, especially to those who have wished or prayed someone could listen.

Hello world!

TARUZIMASO introduction

 

Taruzimaso is a growing community of people who have loved and shared their challenges, and are investing in patience, thought, and prayer to help one another. We are an outreach and appeal to all people and gender, across racial, political, religious, and sexual orientations.

Please cheer someone up. Through your comments, feel free to also share your story or stories with the ‘Community’. Make it an interesting, short, compact and well punctuated story. Your candle shines brightest where light is needed.

“I have always enjoyed listening, and people have told me how much they have been helped” -Leonard.

 

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