There's No Tomorrow For Me

Sometime Ago

“Where una dey go?” Comfort would ask every Saturday morning as Jerry and his father got ready to head out. She knew exactly where they were going and what they were going to do but she never failed to ask that question every time.

It was that same question that would lead to her normal Saturday morning banter. Jerry had gotten used to it already and so had his dad because he never said a word anymore when his wife started her rants.

“Everytime evangelism,” she lamented. “All those people you dey preach for, dem no dey see say hunger wan kill you? None of them fit give you money make you chop? You no geh shame, I swear.”

When his mother said things like that, Jerry would think of how some passersby actually offered them money but his dad would refuse, saying they were doing God's work and not begging for alms. On rare occasions where he'd accept the money, he'd end up giving most of it to the actual beggars on their way home. Jerry could never understand it. In fact, if not for the fact that Jerry loved and admired his father, he would say that it was a very stupid thing to do, and he knew his mother would say the same.

Jerry watched as his father put on his faded striped shirt and his brown sandals that were falling apart. He would pick up his unnecessarily big Bible and they would be on their way to the main market. Joy would stand behind their mother, watching Jerry and their father leave. Jerry could never tell if she wanted to come along—although their mother would rather die than let that happen—but he wished she would.

The part of his Saturdays Jerry liked best was when his father got to tell stories on their way to the market. That was the only time Jerry actually got to talk and bond with his father. It was during times like that his father told him about his childhood in the orphanage and how wonderful those days were because all he had was his faith.

“Why does he let bad things happen?” Jerry cut his father short one day while he was telling him how God looks after His own. He was much younger and naïve then.

His father smiled. “The ways of God are not the ways of man. He has a reason for everything.”

“Then why did He give you one eye?” As soon as those words had left seven year old Jerry's mouth, he knew he shouldn't have asked that. But that didn't stop him from looking up at his father expectantly for an answer. They had even stopped walking at that point as Jerry waited for his father to explain what reason God had for the number of times Jerry had almost gotten into a fight with his mates who called his father 'the one eyed man.'

Growing up, his mother had always refrained him and Joy from asking questions about their father's sealed left eye. And as Jerry watched his father turn to him with an unreadable expression, he knew his mother would have given him a brain-formatting slap if she were there with them.

Jerry's father was a very tall man. So tall that even after he'd squatted to Jerry's level, Jerry still had to look up a little to meet his eyes. His father placed his hands on his shoulder and he forced a smile. “It was an accident, back in the orphanage,” he replied, picking his words wisely.

“Jeremiah, I want you to understand that God sees everything. He has His reasons for letting certain things happen. But one thing I never want you to do is question Him. What did I say?”

“That I should never question God,” Jerry replied.

His father smiled, nodding and patting his shoulders. “Good boy.”

But as Jerry got older, the more he questioned God. Why did God make them poor? Why did God let his parents fight all the time? Where was God when his sister slept around with men for money? What was God doing while he wandered the streets after being sent out of school for not paying his fees? Did God not see that it was Teju's lunch that he would eat everyday in school because he'd die of hunger otherwise?