One day, my mother told us that she was embarking on an official work assignment which entailed traveling.

We did not know the destination. We kept waiting for her return. We did. But it was the last of her. She did not return. 

 ‘So mum did not give us the opportunity to even say goodbye or thank you to her?’ I asked rhetorically

 I never told her I love her but I did. I knew she kept wondering, knowing that I am not the type who easily showed emotions.

I spent all my time with my wife and at work, even though she would always call to ask me how I was doing. Now that she is gone, I cannot replace her with my wife or pastor’s wife and the many other women, who had all my affection.  

My dream was to one day buy her a car. But I wanted to get a wife first, finish my second degree and then settle in my own house. But she could not wait. She is dead now. For once, I should have placed her first as she did for me for her entire life.

I was told, for getting pregnant with me, she dropped out of school and settled for a life way beneath her dream.

She exchanged her dream of being a successful career Christian wife for a life in the cold streets in search of shelter for the yet to be born baby in her womb, because its father had refused responsibility and neither will her own family accept her home.

Her crime? She has denigrated the family name.

Yet, she was defiant. She would rather die than disown her pregnancy. A decision of lifetime consequences, which took away the shine of life out of her, reducing her to ordinariness, in exchange for a son.

A son who could become all that she could not, even if her only joy is a life of loyalty and first importance dedicated to that object of her love which she has perpetually traded everything else for.

 It did not even matter to her that this son will not return her favor before she died.

Akyena Brantuo Benjamin
Broadcast Journalist and Director, BLC
benakyena@yahoo.com