Читать книгу Hannah’s Hope - Paul H Boge - Страница 9

CHAPTER

two

The bright sun shone in my eyes as the bus approached Nairobi. The big city. The famous capital of Kenya. Normally I would have squinted. Normally I would put my hand at my forehead to block out the rays. But this was my first time to Nairobi and I did not want to miss anything. More importantly, my sisters and I were coming to live with our father and his new wife.

And we were so curious what our new life would be like.

It had been three years since my mother’s passing. Father had remarried and was now in a position to care for us. I so wanted to see him again. We all did. And our new mother, too. I felt nervous about meeting her. I wondered if she would like us. Wondered if we were going to be happy together. I wondered what it would feel like to be loved by a mother again. And to be hugged again.

Sometimes it’s the smallest things in life that leave the greatest impressions.

My grandparents had done their best. Even though they had nothing, they gave everything. And while we all knew there was no future in living with them, I somehow had the feeling that their involvement in my life was not yet done.

The bus bumped as the driver tried to find a path down the pothole-filled road. Other passengers became annoyed. Me, I loved it. My sisters and I laughed each time there was a big jolt. Then it suddenly became smoother. We still felt the occasional bumps, but fewer than before. I looked out the window and saw the paved street. It was the first time I had seen something other than mud or gravel for a road.

It had been such a hot ride that when the drizzle started, the cool air that wafted through the windows was a welcomed change. We turned down another street into the city. I saw crowds of people walking, crammed together on either side of the street. I had never seen so many people in all my life.

I saw children on the street. Poor children. Dirty clothes. Alone. I found this strange. Where were their parents? And why were they dressed in such dirty clothes?

At every intersection, people ran out to the bus, offering us food. Mangos. Bananas. Passionfruit. There was a lot to eat. If you had money.

The bus reached the station. Normally, I would have been in awe at the crowds of people. Normally, I would have watched in silence, trying to absorb my new surroundings. Instead, I looked through the maze of people, searching for someone in particular. Interesting how with all the many, many people on our planet, our eyes know exactly when we see the person who ignites our heart. And for me, this was my father. I picked him out of the crowd. And in that moment, all the other people disappeared.

As our eyes connected we became full of life. We smiled. Our hearts lit up. I saw genuine, unmanufactured, joy rise within him. I felt the same in my heart. Seeing him set the world right. Gave me peace. The connection of father and daughter pulled us together where we belonged. We waved at him and hurried out of our seats and off the bus.

He hugged all three of us at the same time. I felt the reassurance that came with his arms squeezing us together. I wanted this moment to last forever. To feel the comfort that came with his love and security. The thrill of being together again made me feel like myself again. Wherever we happened to be—whether in our village, here in Nairobi, or anywhere else in the world—when we were with him, we were home.

He took us to his house—our house—and I felt the rush of nervousness and excitement that comes with experiencing something new. The house looked to be one room larger than the one in our village. I would have spent more time thinking about what that meant, but my heart and mind became consumed with wondering what I would experience inside its walls. Would she love us? Would I feel different around this mother compared with my first mother? Would I feel the same connection? Was that even possible?

Father opened the door. I walked in. I saw our new mother.

Our eyes connected. Yes? No? What did she think of us? In an instant light that had reflected off her eyes made its way into my eyes, where my mind began processing how to interpret how she felt towards me. But there are things that travel faster than light. Truth, for example. And quicker than an instant, I knew what she thought of me. And by the time my mind converted the glimmer in her eye to a feeling, my heart had already long since figured it out. I saw through the windows of her eyes into her soul.

And she was simply wonderful.

She smiled. No words were necessary. A genuine grin that made me feel warm all over. I heard the sound of her voice. It was more than just words. Words just carry meaning. But the tone of her voice revealed her compassionate, caring heart. She walked towards us. I was glad she made the effort to close the distance between us. I was too amazed—or afraid—to bridge the gap myself. She felt like the sun when it warms you up. She asked us how we were. We all said fine. She crouched down beside us so she could be level with us. That meant a lot. It’s the small things that give you the biggest insight into a person. We were still children, and looking at an adult was a long way up. She reached out her arms. And then, she did it.

She hugged us.

A lot of me was worried about making the right impression. Was I the kind of child that someone other than my mother would love? Would she love me for who I was, or would I have to act a different sort of way to gain her love?

The hug she gave me told me that I did not need to worry about anything. And I admired her for loving children who were not hers by birth.

She rose to her feet and began to talk. She talked with lots of hand gestures. My sisters and I exchanged glances. We found that funny. She talked about how excited she was to see us. How much she had been looking forward to having us live with them. She talked a lot. That was fine by me. Whenever someone else was willing to do the talking, I felt at home.

I heard a noise beside me. I turned and saw a square object in the corner. It was like a picture, only the picture moved and had voices coming from it. I looked closer, wondering if perhaps there was something behind it to make it do that. I asked my father what it was. He explained it was a television. News was on.

He took us to our bedroom. All three of us would sleep in this room. I stopped in the doorway. Confused. I saw no sheet on the ground. Were the walls here so good that rain never came in? Is this why we would sleep directly on the ground? I looked around the room.

I saw beds.

Three of them.

He flicked a switch. The room suddenly became full of light. I wasn’t sure which surprised me more, seeing light from electricity or seeing a bed to sleep in.

“These are for us?” I asked.

My dad crouched down beside me. He spoke into my ear. “These are for you. What do you think?”

The three of us children each put a hand on a bed, like touching them would ensure that our eyes were not imagining something too good to be real.

“I get to have my own bed?” Zemira asked.

“Yes!” my dad said.

She bent down and looked underneath her bed.

“Does anyone sleep under here?”

We all laughed. “No,” my father said. “Only you on top of the bed.”

My mother smiled in the doorway. I felt the thrill of being together. Like a whole new life lay before us.

• • •

That evening as we went to sleep, Father talked with us. I watched his face as he spoke. Now that all the excitement of arriving was over, I had a chance to really look at him, and he seemed tired. I wondered if he had to work longer hours to pay for all of us to be here with him. School was going to be expensive, and I wasn’t sure if he had the money to pay for it.

He kissed us goodnight and tucked us in. He turned off the light. But the moon shone enough to illuminate the room. I looked over at Leah.

“We are in a bed,” I said.

“And it is a good bed,” Leah replied.

“Is it a long way down to the ground?” Zemira asked. Leah and I laughed.

“What is so funny?” Zemira leaned over her bed and looked down. “This is my first time in a bed, and if I roll over I might fall off.” She reached down her hand and touched the ground. “This is really high off the ground.”

“You will be fine,” I replied. Then I stopped laughing. My sister was scared. I heard it in her voice. Saw it in her eyes. Felt it in the way her body was tensed up in the shoulders. And I, for one, should have known that when you are afraid, even the simplest things can become great obstacles.

“Zemira?” I asked. She looked at me with trusting eyes. I could tell because they were wide open. When people are suspicious or doubt you, they tend to squint just a little. But Zemira really listened. I could see right into her. I could tell she was waiting for me to give her words of hope. “Everything will be fine.”

She waited. Thought. “All right,” she said, lying down. “But if I fall, it will be your fault.”

We giggled and eventually fell asleep.

• • •

Every Sunday, we sat together on wooden benches in a building with many other people. Usually we were near the front. A man would stand and preach to us. I am sure his words were supposed to encourage me, but they never did. I often wondered if that was his fault or mine.

People around us sang songs. I did not know the words. No one bothered to teach them to me. Still, for me, the singing could have gone on for hours. Hearing the music, even without knowing the words or being able to understand them, I felt a joy, peace, and safety that I did not experience anywhere else. In those brief moments of song, I felt put back together again. Like the fragment pieces of my heart were assembled. Something in the music provided me with the assurance that there was a place out there, somewhere, with true healing that managed to connect with me in the here and now. It provided me a glimpse into another place.

And then, just as quickly as it came, it departed as soon as the song was over, returning me to life as I had come to know it.

All of this church activity seemed important to my father. I, however, had no idea what was happening. Why were we here? Why were people dressed better today than on other days? And why were they folding their hands and bowing their heads? I wished I would have understood. Part of me thought about asking Father, but most of the time we just did what we were told to do.

One evening when my father came home from work I noticed he looked more tired. Maybe I hadn’t been noticing the progression, but he suddenly seemed much more exhausted. He didn’t say anything to us. Not about his energy level. But I could tell. I could tell the way he tried to smile. It wasn’t as natural. He sat on his chair at the table and took the three of us in his arms.

“I love you all so much,” he said, more in a whisper than in his normal tone of voice. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was trying to be quiet or because he didn’t have the energy to manage any more than that. “And always remember to be hard working.”

The following morning we woke up to discover he had passed away.

It was the sound of our stepmother crying that woke me. People started arriving and filling our little home. I had been through this before. And it brought back memories I did not want to relive. I wanted to pretend this was not happening. That self-defence mechanism of not accepting reality is difficult to ignore. It is so much easier than facing reality.

When my mother died, I lost my bearings, my sense of direction, and the comfort of someone who loved me and who wanted my love in return. But losing both parents is indescribable. It was a complete confirmation that I was now alone. Just when I thought there might be some semblance of a normal life for us, everything was torn away. That tidal wave that crashed over us in our hut in the village when Mother passed was nothing compared to this one. This was an earthquake, a tidal wave, and a hurricane coming at us at once.

Leah, Zemira, and I stood in silence. Stunned. I felt an uneasy sense of panic rise within me. Where will we go? Who will look after us? Will we become like those other children with the dirty clothes that we saw on the street?

It was as if we had been torn out of the world and dropped into yet another new one where everything looked the same and yet everything felt so completely foreign. It didn’t feel like we were in the right place. It was as if something had taken hold of me and gripped me with such grief, such fear, such sadness that I was powerless against it.

In losing Mother, I had the relief of knowing that Father was going to come and that he would make it all all right.

And he had. For a while.

But who exactly was going to make it right now?

No one had to tell me my situation now. No one had to explain it to me or to my sisters. I knew it all too well.

I was an orphan.

If I was quiet after Mother passed away, I was completely silent now. I was unable to speak to our neighbours when they took us in that evening. I wanted to say something to our stepmother, who simply cried uncontrollably, yet I was not able to say any words of encouragement to her. I wondered why she was crying so much. It looked like more than grief. The intensity of her crying made me wonder if she felt in some way responsible for his illness.

I didn’t take notice of our neighbour’s house. Normally I would have studied the home and observed everything that made it unique. I suppose I didn’t care, because I knew we would be leaving and going back to our impoverished life with my grandparents.

I thought about my father that entire day and night and for many weeks and months ahead. How exactly can you go from seeing a person the night before to the person being completely gone the next day? How does that happen? Why is that when they are gone they still feel like they are very much alive and that at any moment they are going to come through the door and give you a hug?

Not only had I lost two people that I knew, but I lost two people who knew me. And it was in the not-being-known that I felt my greatest loss. I found it ironic to be on a continent with so many people and yet feel so completely and thoroughly alone.

I sat there that night with my two siblings. The three of us, alone in our new bedroom. It felt so strange. None of us had any idea what to do.

In the days and weeks and months that followed we were shuffled about, cared for by many. Yet it was from here to there to there to here, and in the end I did not know where here or there was anymore.

Nobody ever warned me that grief is the same as fear. I was scared, but I did not know why or what I was scared of. There is something about losing everything that makes you feel you are living alone in the dark. Even the bright African sun did nothing to lift the eternal fog of our hearts and minds. I felt I had returned to the dream I experienced after my mother’s passing. I was looking at life in slow motion. I could see people but not relate to them. Hear them, but not interact.

Grief does strange things to people. Especially to us as children.

We travelled back to our village for the funeral. I stood at the gravesite of my father. I was later told there were many people at the burial site. But at the time, all I could see was the end of my parents. All I heard was the unbearable sound of deafening silence.

And all I felt was the stinging realization that all of this was real.

Afterwards came the debate over who would get to look after us. As awkward as it is to have your fate discussed after a funeral, it was comforting to know how much we were wanted. In the end our grandparents won out over our stepmother. I loved them all very much, and if there would have been a way to have us all together I suppose that would have been best. Our stepmother gave us farewell hugs. I missed her immediately. I admired how she loved us.

We settled back in with our grandmother. Strange how at such a young age I had already gotten used to being moved around so much. It was life, and when you are young you don’t know what to compare it to, so you just presume it is normal.

It did not take long for Leah and me to wonder—worry would be more accurate—about our future. Our grandparents had no money, and without money we weren’t going to school. And without school we would not get a decent job, and without a decent job we would be forced to do whatever manual labour we could find.

Not long after our return, Grandmother informed us we would be going to school. Leah and I were ecstatic. Then surprised.

How would our grandmother afford to send us?

As I went to sleep, on the mud floor, on the sheet, I wondered about studying, wondered where it would all lead, wondered what the end result of all my studying would be. Would I be able to go to university one day? And if so, what kind of career or job would I like to have? What would I like to do? What would I like to become? I let my mind wonder and paid no attention to the normal restrictions of life. I didn’t care if I could afford it. I didn’t care if it seemed impossible. I wanted to escape to a place where I could just dream. Just imagine. Just step into the clouds and believe that whatever was on my heart could become reality.

And for the first time, I realized what my heart’s desire was.