Mother once said that life was like a drink, pulpy orange juice, and we were supposed to sip it slowly, else we might choke. I didn’t understand why she was telling my sisters and me this, but she looked pleased to know that we were listening intently. We must take life as it comes, take it easy, else we might make wrong choices in haste and it would cause chaos. So, I always took my time when making decisions because Mother’s advice always rang loudly in my ears.
Mother once said that life was like homemade pineapple juice – sweet and bright – but it was not always going to be that way. We were to enjoy each season of life, especially the sweet and bright season, before it faded away. When Father was alive, our lives were like homemade pineapple juice. He worked as a driver for a top politician in our country and was paid handsomely. We did not lack, could have what we wanted as long as it did not distract us from our studies, and could go out to parks and fancy restaurants with beautiful clothes and ridiculously high-heeled shoes. He sat with us every morning at the breakfast table, led the opening prayer before we ate and talked in between mouthfuls; a habit my school teacher said was unacceptable and barbaric. I didn’t care what my teacher said because my father was too busy throughout the day driving and getting stuck in horrible traffic that the only time he had with us was in the morning before and during breakfast and when he intentionally took us out to have fun. If I sit and think very well, I can remember the dark tone of his skin, his bass gentle voice which he spoke with even when he was angry and under pressure from work, his long white beards which he always said were signs that he was a wise old man and a big pimple in his forehead that I once tried to burst open – it resulted in him screaming, holding his head and I had no choice than to apologize even though I had only wanted to help.
Father was a kind man, he could not pass a beggar on the street without dropping some coins and when my sisters and I did something wrong, he did not pull our ears and whip us with a cane or call us despicable names, rather he sat us down and talked to us. My sisters and I would be touched by whatever he said that we would promise never to do it again, then my sisters would hug him and kiss his cheeks and I would kiss the special pimple on his forehead. My kiss always came last, followed by a round of laughter. Father was an honest man; his boss had said these exact words. When father discovered a bag of dollars in the boot of the politician’s car he drove, he did not steal some notes, but alerted his boss and gave him the money. The boss was well pleased, telling my father that he had intentionally kept the money there to see how honest he was and my father had not failed him. That day, my father received half of the money in that bag, as a gift for his honesty. It had taught my sisters and me an important lesson – honesty always paid off – and as my father would say, ‘even if no man acknowledged your honest deed, God does and will repay you when the time is right.’ Mother loved father very much. When we were all in the sitting room and she thought my sisters and I were distracted by something, she would kiss my father and they would whisper and laugh. That was the kind of marriage I wanted to have, the kind my parents had.
Mother once said that life was like bitter lemon or sour grape juice at times – hard to swallow. I had never really understood that statement because I had never experienced the bitter or sour side of life. At least, that was until father died in an accident. He had prayed before we ate breakfast that day, kissed our foreheads, told us that he would take us somewhere special during the weekend and so, when news came that a man lying lifeless in a battered and squashed car on the highway had been identified as my father, I refused to believe it. It could have been another man, another driver that looked exactly like my father but it couldn’t be my father. Then the battered and squashed car as a result of the accident was identified as the car that father drove for the politician. The politician had asked him to fuel the car after he had dropped him off at the conference Centre in the morning and was shocked to know that his honest and long-time driver had an accident. It didn’t really matter, what mattered was my hero was gone. After father’s death, I realized that life could really be bitter and sour, like bitter lemon or sour grape juice.
Mother once said that life was like water, void of taste and sometimes, mysterious like a lake. When father passed on, my life lost seasoning. All I wanted was to see his face again, to have him call me his little princess, to caress and kiss the mighty pimple on his forehead. Nothing made sense to me and for a while, I withdrew into my shell. I came out only to comfort my mother and sisters, all of whom were struck by grief. I had planned out my life, and had shared these plans with father and he was in every picture of my plan. The future was so uncertain…father had everything planned out for us before his death and now he was gone. Every day, I wrote him love letters and burnt them, watching the smoke travel to the skies and kiss the clouds. I have found it to be true, that plans change when life happens, when an unexpected event slams you in the face, and all you can do is sit still and pray and watch as things unfold. Perhaps I will always feel this way; I’ll always miss him and wish he hadn’t left us and life will taste like water one day, and homemade pineapple juice another day, and bitter lemon another day, and pulpy orange juice another day, but as Mother said, I’ll sip it slowly, take it one day at a time and hope that everything will turn out all right.
My Juicy Life by Testimony Odey won the 2022 African Teen Writers Award in the Short Story Genre
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