Dear God,
Geraldine and I sat in silence for a while, lost in our different thoughts.
I had a lot of questions….. I was weighing all the options, creating different scenarios. The what ifs’
“Geraldine, what would you do if someone, anyone, did that to your daughter”, I whispered.
She held her breath for a while, then sighed deeply.
“Same thoughts running riots in my head, but I prefer two scenarios….she said slowly….I will cut off his scrotum, peel off the outer layer and boil the two as eggs for breakfast, or I will cut off the third leg, fry it delicately and serve him some hot dogs….”
I busted into hard laughter already.
Lord, I had images in my head, but hers were more imaginative and bolder than mine….
“But seriously Geraldine I struggle to believe that her mum did not know…is it remotely possible that she was unaware of these happening right under her nose?” I said respectfully knowing I was threading thin lines with her sister.
She sighed deeply, her eyes welling up again. She wiped it quickly, almost furious with her eyes for the excess liquid.
She looked at me intensively and shook her head.
“I don’t know honestly. There are many questions on the table, she said tentatively…..try this….”
“How is it possible for her to be in this marriage, with two other wives, 4 other concubines and a series of hit-and-runs? If a woman can endure and trust a man with all these vices, what more can’t she trust and believe?”
“There are personality differences in life and I have learnt to accept it, she continued, as if she was giving one of her numerous lectures in a class. Some of us won’t stay in that marriage after the 1st sign of infidelity, and some of us will be there until something worse than this happens…so what kind of woman are you? What is your elastic limit?”.
“Do you break off or yield continuously?” she asked staring deeply into my eyes.
I could not hold down her gaze for too long. No one has ever asked me such a searching question…..
Really, what is my elastic limit? What do I yield to? At what point would I break off?
“Deep question”, I said to her
She nodded.
“You know, our generation may be the last of the Mohicans”, she smiled wickedly
“The last of the Mohicans?” I repeated laughing.
She nodded again.
“You watched the movie, right?”, she asked me
It was my turn to nod and that is why I can’t relate…..
“We may be the last of the good girls that go into marriage prepared to yield till death do us part”
“Oh”, that was all I said.
“Our mums did not prepare us for this institution called marriage”, she continued reflectively. They didn’t show us from their experiences. They lied, shielded and protected their men against all odds, so we never knew the real deal. You go with the flow”.
“The only advice I remember my mum gave me apart from her prayers was….” she paused and smiled……”Marriage is a parcel….you open it and accept whatever you see………”
I burst out laughing so hard….
“You got that lesson too, right?” she asked me bewildered
I nodded vigorously trying not to choke on my laughs.
“You know, I said trying hard to calm down, when I was 12, my mum called me for a heart-to-heart talk, and guess what she said to me….
“That you are about to be a woman and that if any man touches you, you will get pregnant…Yes?”
We both bust out together in a peal of deep crazy laughter. It was so surreal.
“I got that lesson at 10, Geraldine said, and for months I lived in fear of all the boys in my class. Gosh, to think of all the fights I went into just because a boy accidentally touched me. I beat up the boys in my class eh…. It was my teacher when she found out what was going on in my head, that explained the salient facts to me. Not deeply, but enough for me to know that ordinary touch is not part of it” she said shaking her head sadly.
“I was luckier, I said failing to control the urge to laugh, by the time I had that “Man-touch” conversation with my mum, I was already self-educated. I was an avid reader growing up, I had read dozens of “Mills and Boon, James Hardely-Chase, Root (Kunta Kinte) and lots and lots of novels. I had read about the Man-Touch scenes, and I knew what you had to do to get pregnant…….”
“Lucky you”, she sighed, shaking her head.
“But the uncanny thing for me is that the mums all say almost the same things…same words……How? I laughed again
“It must be the same way their mothers gave them the instructions too……you know, these new generations are luckier. Yes, they may be a bit brazen with the knowledge they have, but the important thing is that they have the right knowledge. It would be difficult to pull some stupid stunts on them in marriage”, she finished.
We sat quietly together absorbing the consequences of all we have learnt and unlearned over the years.
This brings me to my earlier question, my Lord, did the woman know?…… I asked in my head
Maybe, maybe not, but who are we to judge her situation if we have not lived it? Who are we to make assumptions about her choices or lack of it?
What if she knew, how many of us would so easily choose to wash our dirty linen in public against a man we swore allegiance to before God, for better or for worse?
What if she didn’t know, is it not possible to trust someone so blindly to an extent that you believe the person would never harm you or yours?
You see why I am dropping all of these on your table, my Lord, whether the woman knew what was going on or not…You, my Lord, you too knew…..True or false…?
So, who is to blame if the gods are not to be blamed?
There was silence for a while…..
“What about the man?”, I asked Geraldine suddenly.
For some reason, we had avoided talking about the man directly. It was almost as if mentioning him brought reality back into focus.
“How did you people know he was the one…..I mean, he is not the only man in the prison-like household…Yes?”
Touch-button.
Geraldine busted into a web of deep painful weeping. For a minute, I feared she would murder him if she had the chance.
Her eyes were murderous. Her pains were real. There has to be something more. Something much more than just this. The pain I saw in Geraldine’s eyes was real, but not just for her niece, it said much more……too much more.
Hmmm.
Now, Lord, I have a feeling that I have stepped into the elephant’s dung.
But, You, Oh Lord, knowth all things, seeth all things……Do what only You can do.
You have a way of working all things together for good, yes? Please take this on….Start by healing this pain….Just Heal…Please Heal.
This is your daughter, I am checking in again without judgment.
2 Comments
Ifee, a very thought provoking read as usual. May God continue to grant us the grace to do the right thing and understand the impact our actions have on our husband / wife & family.
Interesting read, thank you Ifee!