November 21, 2012

Strawberry Ice-cream

It is the season for giving thanks. 

There is so much I am looking up to God for...but they are far less than what He has already done or given me. This season, I give thanks for life, family, friends, grades, school, the ability to write, the yellow and red leaves that line my walkway, the future...

Whatever it is, no matter how terrible it seems like right now, there are reasons to be thankful and there will be even more as the day goes by.

I wrote this a few days ago...I hate strawberry ice-cream.


It is a long walk from where we parked the car and the strain of the journey is already beginning to take its toll on her. I want to pick her up like I used to but I do not.
‘Zik?’ She calls to me.
I grunt out an answer.
‘You haven’t looked at me since we got out of the car.’ She says
There are no right words to say in response and so I squeeze the hand I have been holding onto a little tighter and hope it is enough.
The sun is setting when we finally make it to the place. Nothing seems to have changed and yet we both know that everything is different. It is the same stone where we sat and shared our first kiss. It is the same green grass on which I knelt to propose. Nothing has changed and yet everything is different.
I find our spot and lay my jacket on it so she can sit. There are tears in her eyes and so I wipe them away as I hold her in my arms. We stay that way for as long as it takes. We talk about the good times; we cry over the bad; we watch the sun set as we contemplate the future.
There is more gray in her hair than I remember and I wonder if when he holds her, she finds peace as she once found in my arms. Her hair smells like the strawberries in the ice cream melting in the trunk of my car.
It will be time to leave soon. So much to say and yet so little time to say it.

‘Lola.’ I whisper into the graying hair
‘Hmmm…’ She answers.
‘You should have said ‘yes’. I say.
‘I say ‘yes’ every night in my dreams. I say ‘yes’ every time I hear a Luther Vandross song. I say ‘yes’ every day, watching my healthy children grow, knowing that I would have loved our sickle cell babies the same. I would give everything I have now to go back in time and say ‘Yes’. I would give everything I have now to have been as strong and as unafraid of the future as you were. But I was not; and that ‘No’ haunts my every waking hour. ’ She tells me.

I glance upwards, looking towards the approaching dusk. Our families will be waiting; her husband and children, my wife and child.  They will be looking at clocks and watches. They will be worried, afraid to face a future without a mother, a wife, a father, a husband. 

The stars are starting to twinkle their way through the dusk.
‘We could start all over again.’ I say to her.
She holds my face and says ‘There are some beginnings that are best ended before they begun. Too many people will suffer, Azikiwe.’

We finally pack it up, dusting the regrets and the memories of this place off our bodies and our hearts. She hands me my jacket and I take her hand. We take a few steps back up the road we came before I stop to look into her eyes one last time.

They are no more tears in them.

‘Yes.’ She says to me.

There is always an answer for this question

‘Always Lola...’ I say in reply.

The journey back is much shorter than I would have liked. We get back to the parking lot of the grocery store too soon. She gets out of the car and waves a sad goodbye. I wonder if I will ever see her again or if it will take another 20 years for me to run across the past.  
I drive home slowly, keeping one eye on the road and another on the stars. My wife’s name is Adanma. She is waiting in the living room when I get back. I hand her the melted strawberry ice-cream she sent me to the store for. I hold her in an embrace before she can ask any questions. She lets the ice-cream fall to the ground and holds on tightly.
‘I love you.’ I say.
I do not tell her ‘Yes’.
I do not tell her that whilst I did her bidding and walked the aisles of the grocery store, I found my past.
‘I love you’ I say, over and over again.

Song of the day: Kirk Franklin & Mary Mary - Thank You


November 10, 2012

Until Today becomes Yesterday


When today becomes yesterday
I will fall to pieces in your arms
And let you put me back together

When today becomes yesterday
I will hold your hand in mine
And follow wherever you lead

When today becomes yesterday
I will look forward to the tomorrow
That you can't seem to stop talking about

But until today becomes yesterday
Let me sit in these ashes
Let me lie in this despair
Let me revel in this pain

Let me be... 
Unloved

Love can wait 
Until today becomes yesterday


So Seyeblogs saw this and wrote a response...find here... i think mine is much better :)

Song of the day: B.o.B - So Good

November 2, 2012

Inadequate


Sweet November my lovelies...


The child was awake already, Uju could tell. She wanted to awaken and bring him into bed with her but her body wouldn't move. He wasn't crying, just making cooing noises to himself. He never cried, this one, so unlike the ones that had come before him. They said a mother always loved her children equally. The people that said that obviously had never been mothers. She couldn't even hide it and she didn't try-this was ‘her child’.

The man besides her stirred and she thought of their conversation the night before.

‘You aren't helping him. Coddling him will not help him. Sooner or later you will have to face the fact that he is special and needs more than you can give him.’

She had said nothing in response but the look in her eyes had stopped the man for going any further. Who was he to say what she could give or couldn’t? Who was he to talk about the limits of her motherhood? Who was he to make her feel like she wasn't enough for a child she had nurtured within her own body for 8 months and 10 days. She had looked at him without saying a word and her husband had hissed out loud in frustration and dumped the brochures he had been holding onto her laps. She didn't even look at them before dumping them into the trash.

She reached out for the man now. She held on tight, hoping he could tell that this was her way of trying to make peace. He turned to her and she opened her eyes. It was then she saw that he had been awake for a while. There were tears in the brown eyes that were the exact same ones on the child that continued to coo.

She knew then that she wasn't the only one that loved the child in this way. She knew then that loving him the way they did would consume them and leave nothing for anyone else, not even themselves, if she let it. She knew then that she had only one choice.

There were still ears in the man’s eyes so she cleaned them with the sleeve of her nightdress. She took off the dress and gave of herself to him.  She left him fast asleep and found the other children. They slept on peacefully and her heart swelled with love for children that were just like her; ten fingers, ten toes, and full mental capacities.

The child was still cooing when she finally got to him. He turned his eyes to her and smiled that smile that must have been what the smiles of angels looked like. She smiled back.

‘Maaa- Ma’
That was the limit of his speech and she had always secretly been pleased it was her that his tongue chose.

She picked him up, her four year old, her baby, her failures and her successes rolled into one. Together, they found the trash bag and weeded out the brochures of the St. Nicholas Home for Special Children.

Song of the day: Enya- Only Time