UNTOLD (A Battle Between Life And Death)

Chapter 2- Memories

I remember a time when my siblings and i, huddled around our parents would argue about petty things like the particular type of bread to have for breakfast, between roasted corn and boiled one which tasted better. Or one time, when my mother asked my elder brother Bryan (Jnr) to go and get a stool to serve kola to some visitors and Bryan, instead of bringing the stool had brought the spicy pot of stew my mother had just prepared. Till today Bryan still swears that mother said stew not stool. I also remember that day, when me and my elder sister Zinobia were travelling with my father from our home town in Elele to Port Harcourt, neither Zino nor me agreed to sit in the front passenger seat and when my father had slightly gotten tired of trying to coax us, he had strapped our dog Billy to the front seat.
Those were good times.
When i was five years old, i was watching my mother with fascination as she cooked pasta in the kitchen, with such grace and elegance. When mother caught me staring, she had called me into the kitchen with her beautiful smile and explained what she was doing. This is one of the most vivid memory i have of my mother and pasta had become my favourite food from that day too.

Those were good times, again.

I suppose we were all very happy then, until my mother died.

Mother died when i was seven years old, Bryan was fourteen and Sister Zinobia was nineteen.

The day our mother died was like any other day, nothing seemed out of place. I was playing with some other children in the neighbourhood after school just like every other day. It was actually just me and Bryan at home that day, since my father and Zino were both at the hospital.

You see, my mother was sick. What she was suffering from, i had no idea. I only knew that the few months before she died, she was very much emaciated and i could barely recognize her because she looked so frail.

That day, my father came home from the hospital with Sister Zino, father had a sullen expression on his face, i turned to search sister's face but she was unfortunately spotting the same expression as father. I noticed her eyes looked puffy, like she had been crying. At that point, i was convinced that something was extremely wrong.

"Bryan, Ego-Oyibom. Come to the sitting room for a moment, there is something i need to tell you two" my father croaked. Bryan and i glanced at each other before quietly going after him into the sitting room.

"Well you see, sometimes in life things happen, that we don't have control over..."
My father began saying. I was a little confused at first because i realised father was struggling very hard to speak and at the same time maintain his demeanor and other the other side, Zinobia was already crying profusely. I think Bryan felt what was coming too, because he quickly rose to go and sit beside Sister Zino, he wrapped his arm around her in a comforting manner while she sobbed.

"Your mother died"
my father finally announced in a very low voice, that his words came out as a whisper.

I felt too stiff to move and there was no immediate response to father's sudden information. The only sounds that could be heard in our sitting room was Sister Zino and Bryan's voices as they cried.

Now it seems so ironic that the day my mother died i could not shed a single tear but that became a different ball game in my teen and adult life.

My gaze swept to my father in time to catch tear drops escape from his eyes before wiped it off.

In my whole life, i had only seen my father cry twice.
That day was the first time.

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