Mother had told me that the fact that father ate the food showed she was free from any accusation connected to his death. When I asked her why he ate only a little of the food, considering that father was a man and men eat heavily, she told me that father did not eat much because he was not happy that he had left us. I listened and believed since I was convinced that she would not lie to me.
Some nights too, after breastfeeding my younger sister, Mma, Mother would raise her voice in lamentation, calling my father’s name repeatedly. Young Mma and my two younger brothers would wake up many times and cry along with her, until Mother lured them back to bed again. I was considered too old to disturb her, so during these nights, I tried to help as much as I could. My Mother’s incessant cries had caused me anxiety and many sleepless nights, too. Sometimes in the night, I would leave my bed to sit closer to her in solidarity.
It was not always like this before, I still remember. My father loved his wife like his own soul and never wanted to see her sad-faced. The last night he spent with us still haunt my mind. This particular night, as Mother was crying, my memory went back to father, to the night we talked, the way he talked to me as a son he loved dearly.
The night was dark and silent, during the early planting season. That night, the moon was in its full glory. My father lay very sick on his bed. He had only been told that it was severe iba which had come as a result of long neglect. It was true. My Father never believed in the power of medicine. I was told that he used to say that only cowards die young and that only the lazy keep time with medicine. This time, his idea failed him.
I walked with Mother into his room to see how he was faring with the sickness. Mother had not been lying close to him since the sickness began because she had just put to bed. The way we met him was discouraging. He lay speechless, but fully awake even at that strangest time of the night. He looked robust as he used to, being fully dressed. His eyes were open, but one could not tell if he was dead or alive. His breathing was slow and painful. Though I was too young to know many things, I knew he was severely ill. I could see his effort as he strained his head to look in the direction from which my Mother called his name, touching him tenderly. He quickly put on a cheerful face and called my name. I smiled broadly as I looked at his face in silence. Excitement built up in my mind, my fears suddenly disappearing. Father would be well again, I told myself. On his sick bed, no one could recall a moment when his face and whole body had been full of joy and life. His face became younger, so young that it would be hard to believe that this young man could be my father. If it were the past, we could have been blood brothers. As we sat, we looked as though we were of the same parents. As the only son, he had married Mother so early in his life to keep the family lineage going.
His face suddenly changed. One who had long been sick becomes normal the moment he would die. The battle to choose between the living and the dead was before him. He would have loved to live. At least, it was better to be sick than to die. Gradually, he began to take away his eyes away from Mother, and finally focused more on me. I remember the day he once challenged Mother in my presence that a man becomes older to his mother the day he comes into the world, because I lifted stone that she was asking father to remove from its place. No matter how useful Mother was to him, he preferred me to her. He took a long fatherly glance at me and squeezed my hands tenderly. It was a good time. He had set it aside to transfer the burden of headship to me. At that time of the night, I was still awake. That was another credit to me. He would not have talked because, he was very weak. But, even at that tender age, I understood. Mother carefully picked her way out to answer my younger brother’s call. Her leaving gave my father a momentary pleasure, one he could use to explain in details the burdens in his mind.