He never thought he would be one of them: the children who lose their parents at thirteen. It was mythical until it happened but seeing was believing. He did not wake up one day to a drastic change, it was a gradual process that left him empty when it had finished.
For so many years he blamed himself. Grief has a way of making the brain malfunction. It certainly left its mark on him because he believed something as impersonal as a disease, in a generation before him, was his fault. Things like these didn't make sense to him until he was on the receiving end of loss.
He had not even existed when his mother decided to have an affair with a man who did not think it was necessary to inform her about his STD. That was terrible for her as she found out she was pregnant but it didn't cause complications with the pregnancy. All she was told was that she could not breastfeed and she was at peace with that. Her baby would not be harmed drastically.
Unfortunately, because she was female, she suffered from cervical cancer a few years after that. He was only in primary school and he didn't understand why his mom was different. Not that other kids' parents were supermodels but she just looked very frail. She was only 41 years old and she looked much older. It made him love her less. He was embarrassed of her and it was something he could not explain.
He did not even know what was happening to her because he was in boarding school. He, one day, came back to find his aunt in the living room with her. "Have you told Rue yet?"
Told me what? He wondered what could possibly be so important. "Cancer is not something a 12 year old should deal with." That was her answer.
•••
Cancer.
It took her away from him. He wished it had a representation in human form. He would torture that person. Slowly. He would take away everything and everyone it loved, then let it live so it can bask in the pain. That is everything it did to him.
He blamed himself because his mother loved him too much. That is what he thought. She had the choice of aborting since the STD had the potential of harming her baby but she would not stand for that. She did not have the power to overcome what was eating her body but she made her decision. She chose him over HIV. She chose faith over precaution. She chose love over pain.
Which was why she named him Rudo, which means love in Shona. He knew this and it made his heart ache. Her love for him surpassed her own fears.
Like everything else in life, her choice came with consequences. When he was six years old, she got cervical cancer.
YOU ARE READING
To Hurt
Non-FictionPain often finds a way of making itself a constant in its bearer. Once it does that, it is all you will ever know. The greatest pain in life is the one that doesn't allow space for anything else. I would know this better than anyone else, for my li...
