EPIPHANY

Chapter Five

My friend Ameenah use to say

"pain is relative, the severity of yours doesn't invalidate that of another"

I haven't soaked my heart in any truer words. My heart has suffered countless blows born from what I presumed was love but has metamorphosed into complete contempt, indifference, selfishness and a catch between lust and just desires.

My marriage was no doubt a hell hole, but thinking about the amount of pain my biological mother and my stepmother have both undergone disguised as "marriage" I still poke my self to be sure I was flesh and blood and not an idiotic robot!

What was I really thinking? Marrying a man because well everybody thought it was time? After everything I have witnessed in the marriage between my stepmom and my dad. I don't know much about my mom's ordeal, I was much younger when she left but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I'm very much like my dad unfortunately and boy! I'm probably the most unforgiving person you will ever encounter, my mom must have been through a series of unspeakable events. For a moment I felt insensitive approaching my stepmom with my troubles, my father didn't exactly build her a heaven either but are we all not selfish heart looking for another heart that matches are selfish?

Talking about moms, when the heart aches and the soul doesn't seem to rest, the best place to be is in the presence of unconditional love. I picked up my phone and dialed "Dear mother" because nobody else can make the pain go away. If she wasn't so far from me I'd be in her presence this very minute. Don't get me wrong, I love my stepmom, she has been more of an angel than a human but the mother's love is parallel to none, no point trying to quantify it.

"Hello mom"

I tried, I gave it my all to not have my voice crack, to not make my mother panic, my very gentle mother of profound beautiful memories...

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My mom and dad separated when I was baby, I have no memories of them together, I don't know why my mom looks like when she is love, I don't know if her eyes sparkle or her stomach makes weird noises, I don't even know if she is capable of that kind of love, the kind of love you nurse for a man. The only love I have seen in her eyes is the kind you nurse for a child-your child!

My aunt had told me how exasperating the separation has been for my mother. My dad didn't even have the decency to throw her out while she was still home, he'd waited for her to go to work before he'd came back home to throw her things out and changed the lock, he didn't care that she had a 4month old baby and might not have a place to stay or that she was the first child of her parents and had siblings to take care of. He just threw her things out. I remember feeling nothing but contempt for my dad ever since, I'd shed an ample amount of tears when my aunt told me how my mom rushed back home from work when my aunt had phone her with the neighbor's telephone to inform her. She'd rushed back home with little me still clutched against her bosom, confusion replaced reasoning. Their parents were in the village and village was far she knew not a single person in the city hence her confusion, if she wasn't with two kids; the first one a boy who was three years of age then and me who was a few minute shy of my 4th year, then she probably wouldn't have panicked. They'd waited for my dad right in front of the door, hoping he'd return and take pity on them, he did return but didn't even look at them twice! Wait! He didn't even look at me who was just a baby. That night my mom and aunt slept right outside the door! It's safe to say my mom never slept, she had two beautiful children to look after she couldn't blink for what if she did and somebody took her baby?

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"My baby, how are you?"

My mom replied from the other end of the phone

"Did you just wake up, your voice sounds muffled"