One. The absence of peace
Even before she passed away like the sun in a wet season, her life wasn’t tranquil. My mother was a psychologically tortured woman. A harassed woman and of course the breadwinner of the family. I would always find her talking to herself like a lone sailor when a heavy storm loom up ahead. I was just 12 then, but something about it didn’t seem right. Something about my father coming back home later from work, drunk to stupor, to harass my mother didn’t seem right. Something about the whimpers of my mother that I overheard while pretending to sleep on the living room couch didn’t seem right. Something about how my mother was the one who would raise and pay my school fees, even though my classmates having their fathers responsible for their tuition fees didn’t seem right to me. Something about how the pain behind my mother’s eyes was always obvious, even when she tried to bury her feelings with a smile. It was crystal clear even when she tried to look happy like a young frolicsome pigeon, or laugh with our next-door neighbours. Or even when she would play hide and seek with myself and my younger brother when my father wasn’t around, didn’t seem right. There was a deep hole in my mother’s heart that I wished I could fix with more than just a hug or a kiss. There was the absence of something she yearned for. I grew up a frustrated child, who wished she wasn’t so afraid of her father, who longed for peace and at least some sort of happiness.
Two. The ability to fight for peace.
My mother wasn’t the strongest person I’ve ever known, but she was strong in all the ways that mattered to me. She was strong in the way she received punches and slaps from my father. She was strong in the way she bottled up her injuries, heartaches, tears and always tried to joke around and smile. She was strong in the way she had a small kiosk where she sold little provisions just to cater for the family, and how my father would forcefully collect stuffs he never paid for. She was strong for raising me and my younger brother despite all the violence, for teaching me how to do chores. How to cook – I learnt how to cook almost any kind of Nigerian delicacy before her sudden demise. I learnt how to go to school every morning, without breakfast. I learned how to receive strokes of koboko (horsewhip) by my teachers for always arriving late at school. I would come late because I had to walk the long distance. I learnt how to be strong, in that kind of way. The way that suggests to the suffering, hardening or subjugation of a woman. I would never teach my children to be strong that way. And most importantly, she was strong enough for accepting my father, for who he was, for apologizing to him even when she didn’t need to, for letting him in. But she was wrong about that. I only got to realize that my mother, despite her strength, wasn’t strong enough because she was afraid to let him go for reasons, I could not fathom. She didn’t have the ability to fight for her own peace.
Three. What is peace anyway?
“Do you know the meaning of your name?” My mother had asked me, two weeks before her death.
“No,” I answered. “Salamatu, the meaning of your name is ‘peace,’ she beamed, “So you need to at least be smiling very often. You frown too much.” My mother retorted as I laughed genuinely, she laughed too – her dimple deepening into the cheek of her ebony colored skin. Her eyes becoming little as she laughed. My beautiful mother, who had become worn out with suffering like a homeless cat. And I realized that ‘peace’ was the meaning of my name. Salamatu – the name that my father so aggressively abused. The way he used to call me by my name then, when he was about to punish me. My father – Abubakar, a tall man with a chocolate skinned-colour, and teeth too well arranged in rows for a man like him. So sad he didn’t even resemble the true monster he was. My mother used to tell me that I was a ‘spitting image’ of my father. I remember the days my father used to call me sweetie, and I knew he loved me then. But something changed as I grew older. Everything changed. I changed too. I stopped hugging him, stopped giggling at his jokes, stopped loving him. Because I became afraid of the monster that he was. Maybe my father just stopped loving us all at once. Maybe he didn’t find peace with us. Maybe he never even loved my mother in the first place! I can still remember the definition of peace from my social studies notebook. “The absence of violence, conflict or hostility and the presence of equality and human rights.” But here, my father was the source of violence and hostility.
Four. How do we fight for peace?
My mother once told me that a woman is like a silent prayer. A sacrifice. An offering. And I wondered if that was the reason why she became a sacrifice for my father. A burnt offering.
The last time I saw my father was on that very sunny Wednesday – I had just returned from School, all tired . And even before reaching the corner to our apartment – a crampy 1 bedroom self-contained accommodation, the smallest In a compound of five flats. I could hear my mother’s cries again, and this time, there was something disturbing about it. There was pain in the way she cried. I got into the house and found my mother sprawled out on the bare floor, across our tight living room, a red Ankara wrapped loosely around her chest, little blood stains coming out of her nose, her arms swollen red by my father’s belts. I stared down at my mother and wondered why she had to continue suffering in vain. I was hurt beyond boundaries.
Amidst confusion and frustration, I ran out of the house and began to run until I found myself in front of the police station that was a few miles away from my school, that I had promised to report my father. My father was a criminal, and deserved nothing but prosecution. I had cried to them, telling them everything I knew of my father’s constant abuses. Therefore, hours later, a police van pulled into our compound to arrest my father and took him away. I looked into his eyes for the last time, he muttered something under his breath as our eyes met. I didn’t hear what he said but it probably would have been a curse. I didn’t care. That was the way I could fight for my peace.
Five. Right to peace.
My mother died a month after father’s arrest. But in all the years I have spent with her, I had never seen her so at peace like she was. She wasn’t happy. She wasn’t frustrated. She wasn’t tortured. She wasn’t harassed. At least, she began to laugh genuinely at my jokes. Her eyes didn’t carry mysterious stories anymore. She played more hide and seek with us. The kiosk was flourishing again. She told me stories of her youth. And we ate good food.
Within just a month, I got to realize how much we have missed on treasured moments, because of my father. But he wasn’t just the problem, my mother never thought of fighting for her own peace of mind, instead she felt safe in it. But I needed it. My younger brother, Sadiq needed it. She would have thought of us.
A week before my mother died, when Sadiq went out to play with the other kids outside, she told me “you know, when I gave birth to you, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, Salamatu, I thought you were the greatest gift God has ever bestowed me with,” she paused, allowed her tears to trickle down her cheeks, “thank you for standing up for me. You and Sadiq are all I have, and tomorrow if I die, I can be confident enough that I have someone there for us. I love you so much, my strong, beautiful girl!”
I felt kind of cringe as my mother finished talking. But deep down, I knew she really meant it, that she was truly proud of me. And I enjoyed every bit of every moment I shared with my mother and brother at peace.
At the end of the day, we don’t have to be the best to be happy, we just need happiness on our own terms. In the end, we’ll be what matters most to us. Our own kind of unique and peaceful happiness.
This poem emerged as the first-place winner in the 3rd edition of the African Teen Writers Awards for Prose.
Please click here to view the full list of the winners and to read their stories
