When I was young, I couldn’t go to sleep unless I was touching my mother; a habit that continued way into my teens. It could be a finger on her arm, but the second the connection broke, my eyes would pop open. It was separation anxiety born out of a few weeks of absence when she’d been in the hospital recovering after a motorcycle accident. (She’d fallen off after a car hit them, and the rider left her for dead. A Good Samaritan motorist found her and took her to the hospital.)
Going to university in a different state at eighteen cured me of the habit, but it was replaced by an even deeper connection, one that has persisted far longer than the original. We currently live in different countries (next-door countries, because I didn’t want to move too far away from her), but whenever I am sick or in distress, she knows. It doesn’t matter if we spoke the day before; she gets a gut feeling and calls me right away. I tell her all is well and try to get a laugh out of her because I don’t want her worrying about me, but those phone calls make me feel better. Nothing beats knowing there’s someone in this world with whom I share an almost primal connection—someone who loves me in all the ways that matter.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a mama’s girl. I boast about being daughter of the year for ten years running, about being her favourite child and the apple of her eye—even though all evidence says this is my brother, her only son, the undisputed one—but I’m the writer here and much prefer my agenda.
The reverse is also true. I like my mother. She knows when to mind her business. She is sweet and respectful to everyone, irrespective of age. She always has a smile and a compliment ready, even if you’re just meeting for the first time. She also has that “bad mouth” that only Urhobo people have, and when she’s in her element, her wit is off the charts. She laughs like a balloon inflating, as if once she gets enough air in, she’ll float away from sheer joy. I have been told we laugh alike (and sound alike), and while I don’t hear it myself, nothing would please me more than to have it be true.
As I get older, I hope for my mother’s level of common sense. Her reaction in situations of mass hysteria, where most people are losing their heads, amazes me. During the Ebola crisis, when everybody and their dog were bathing in salt, she thought it was ridiculous and refused to. When the COVID-19 vaccine was under attack by anti-vaxxers and all kinds of WhatsApp broadcasts were making the rounds, she called out the stupidity and berated those who sent her those messages. When Buhari was touted as the next best thing after sliced bread, she told anyone who would listen that he would wreck the country. During the #ENDSARS protests in 2020, she wished she were younger so she could join the protesters.
Of course, there are times when she does and says things, as older parents are wont to, that make me do a double-take. I get my expressiveness from her, although I am more vocal in the moment about things I disagree with than she is. She’s big on letting peace reign. (But she has the memory of an elephant and will carry a grudge for decades if she needs to.) That’s when we argue. If I liken such conversations to a boxing match, she’d be parrying, and I’d be looking to land a knockout blow. Neither of us ever wins.
The good thing about her is that whenever the same issue comes up, and it always does, I can tell she has given it a lot of thought and walked back her position enough for me to drop my gloves. This does not apply to her religious beliefs. I have been her child long enough to know that I can never win against God or the Catholic Church.
***
You take it for granted when you grow up loved, until someone points it out to you or you’re faced with stories of what passes as normal in other people’s parental relationships. More than half the “Nigerian/African mothers” jokes go over my head because I immediately think “that’s not my mother”. It’s shocking sometimes the amount of dysfunction we stomach just because there is a parent involved.
I know that love and trauma can exist side by side and often do in parent-child relationships. Like most millennials with my socio-economic background, “spare the rod and spoil the child” took up a large part of our parents’ discipline kit. Thankfully, I came out of that stage relatively unscathed because I landed a parent who practised a version of gentle parenting. I acknowledge that my mother is a product of her time, parenting alone without backup and didn’t have the information at her disposal to make different choices. Still, she did the best she could with what she had. For me, at least.
My mother did a lot of talking when I misbehaved. Most of it went in one ear and out the other, but whatever stayed sat on my conscience and consciousness, and over time, enough of it coalesced into something that modified the “stubborn” side of my brain. I didn’t exactly become more obedient; I just became less prone to giving in to impulse and started thinking more before I acted.
Interestingly enough, in all that talking, I never heard a negative comment about myself, not even as a joke. I saw and heard plenty of parents around us do it. “Your head big full everywhere but nothing dey inside.” “Abeg get out, mumu pikin.” “Na God go punish that mouth wen you say dey hungry. No be now now una chop?” “Idiot. Fool. Monkey.” It was the norm. But it wasn’t normal for my mum, no matter how badly I behaved.
I was a big-headed child with adult-sized upper incisors and a tiny body, and got teased all the time—Skeleton two babies, Dracula, Gorimakpa, etc., but that was all outside, out of earshot of my mother. If anyone in the house, siblings or cousins, said something about me, she would immediately tell them off. I have a healthy self-image because she always found ways to build me up. The shape of my head was pretty. I had strong, firm legs that balanced well on the ground. I had a beautiful laugh. I was smart. I was not picky with food. Even when there was a double standard in how other adults treated me versus other pretty kids, I didn’t notice because my self-worth was founded on more than looks.
Then there was the positive reinforcement. When I did something right, I was praised to the high heavens. My mother constantly acknowledged my strengths: “Jite is good with her hands and fixing things.” “She reads a lot of books.” “She can find mistakes easily when she reads something.” “She knows how to attend to customers.” Nobody outside our home needed to know that I stole a bunch of earrings and socks from her shop to sell in school and pocket the money. Or that I stuffed so many dirty socks inside a sofa that I had fifty+ pairs at one point.
There was also a lot of hugging and cuddling. I am not a physically affectionate person. But with my mum, I would wear her skin if it were possible. She would put my head on her lap while we just sat and did nothing, or I would play with the mole on her side. (One time, I allowed my intrusive thoughts win and bit her mole. She thought it was funny, but I still got smacked.) I would crowd her personal space, and she would pull me in. It didn’t matter where we were or who was there. I would get a hug and a pat and a soft “She’s my baby” for the benefit of anyone questioning her action. I do not have any memory of being pushed away.
I am tall enough to fit her five-foot-nothing frame in the crook of my arm, to be the one cuddling her. And I do it whenever I visit, teasing her about her height, thanking God I didn’t inherit her short genes, as we walk to a neighbourhood shop to spend my money. She responds by smacking my arm and reminding me that she just happens to be the small one in a family of big people (all her siblings are/were above average height). As she gets older and smaller, I find myself becoming more protective of her, and the roles have reversed. I have to “parent” her a lot more than I could have imagined. Now I know exactly where my stubbornness comes from. The flavour is different, but the product is the same.
There are times I wonder what kind of life she would have had if she’d been able to follow all her dreams. I wonder about her regrets. But she doesn’t like to dwell on the sadness of the past. She’s the poster child for contentment and has made peace with her life. She spends her days in church praying, reading at home, watching news analysis on YouTube and sending me WhatsApp messages that end with “What do you think?”
Eloghosa Osunde has a story titled “There is Love at Home” in her novel, Vagabonds. It has become one of my favourite sayings, one that I can use in all honesty because my mother showed me what love is and how to receive and give love in friendships and found family. There is love at home for real.
Ada decided to take a walk down the street. It had been a long day. Moving to a new neighbourhood after Mrs. Robinson’s dog had bitten her ankle for the third time. Stupid dog. At least there were no stray dogs on this street. She had done her checks.
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