Dear God,

Pastor Ojo, the anointed man of God in our local church, the one they say used to talk to angels face to face and give demonic spirits the scare of their lives, told us in Sunday school yesterday that we don’t need to be able to speak in big-big tongues like him before we can talk to you. He said although you’re great and almighty, we mustn’t be afraid of you, mustn’t think of you as a boogeyman that haunts and hurts innocent children. If you’re that powerful yet kind, then I think you must be like the big friendly giant. Am I permitted to picture you in that light?

Pastor Ojo also said we can take all our problems to you, whatever they may be. He assured us that not only will you listen to us, but you have everything it takes to make all our problems go away. That’s so cool. Can you do for me the things the fairy godmother did for poor Cinderella? No, wait, wait. I’d prefer it if you can give out a lot of stuffs like Santa Claus.

I’m sorry. Mother says a child must not ask a stranger for gifts. It’s a very bad first impression, she warns. But I’m really not a spoilt child or a greedy one. By the way, that’s not the reason I’m talking to you now. I don’t want fancy gifts. Even if I do want them, what good would they do to a broken boy like me?

Mother says I must never refer to myself as broken. But Mama, my granny, uses the word to describe me all the time that I can’t help but believe that’s how I really am.

Mama is a bitter and mean woman, but truly I deserve her cruelty. After all, I cause her daughter, my own mother, so much pain. Just like now, for example. Every other kid my age is in school currently, but where am I now? In the hospital, my second home. The doctors and nurses are all well-known to me as I am to them. I know all their names, and as I am a keen observer and a good listener, I know so many other things about them. Even if I wasn’t such a good listener, I mean with the amount of time I spend here and how frequently we come here these days, I would still be able to know so much.

Hospital bills, I gather, are really expensive. I can only imagine how much it is costing Mother and how much Mama is contributing?

The nurses are nice though, a lot nicer than Mama. Mama calls me an evil child, says I was cursed from birth. Mother and Mama fight a lot because of this. Whenever Mama addresses me as evil or cursed, Mother would jump to my defense, warning Mama never to say that to my hearing. But Mama, as if she had gone as deaf as Bally, the deaf and dumb beggar down our street, would say the same words to me at the next opportunity that presents itself, and Mother would scream at her and they would quarrel and quarrel until the neighbors would gather, and most of them would rebuke Mother for fighting her old mother, and Mother would run with me into the house and both of us would cry and cry.

I always know why I was crying – I was causing a lot of problems for Mother. But I never understand why Mother cries – or does she also believe I’m a curse to her and is only pretending for my sake? The times when both of us would hold on to each other and cry, she’d always mention a man’s name. “Chidi, it will not be well with you wherever you are,” she’d sob.

The other kids are also mean to me. They call me a bastard, and whenever I run to Mother in tears and ask about my father, she’d only stare upwards for a long time, saying and doing nothing until tears start to stream down her face. These days, I’ve stopped asking her about Father.

I don’t have friends because the other kids wouldn’t play with me. Ekene, the stammerer in the house next to ours, was honest with me, said his parents had told him I was too fragile. “Fragile” – isn’t that the word they use for things like egg and glass?

But Ekene’s use of the word made me understand so many things. Such as why our teachers in school give me a special treatment, always careful around me, making an exception of me during general punishments, and why I’m the only kid that doesn’t get whipped at all.

Luka said he’s envious of me in this regard, but I don’t want to be different from other boys my age. I also want to play football without the teachers telling me it’s not safe for me. I want to run around, free and unhindered, in the school playground.

Whenever I whine about being different from other boys, Mother says I’m a special child, but Mama uses the word… what’s the word again? …oh, yes, “mutation.” She once told me, “Your mother and father did something they were not supposed to have done till they were married. If they’d waited, the church council would have insisted they ran a test. If they’d run the test, they would have known they weren’t compatible. But they did it anyway, and you emerged – a mutation.”

I don’t understand what it all means, but I know I hate my father so much I want a change. But I don’t know how much of this hatred is really mine, and how much of it is Mama’s. Recently, Mama has made a ritual of telling me about my father. “He’s a coward. After taking advantage of my innocent daughter, he couldn’t face the consequences of his actions – you – and ran away, saddling us with the weight of you.”

Pastor Ojo said you can be a father to the fatherless. The other kids are right. I don’t have a father. So, can you be my father? This is all I ask for. And I hope you won’t mind having a broken boy for a son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash