Decisions That Changed My Life

Chapter 1
Days Of My Life

Some days in life are difficult to forget. It may be because we relive them over and over again and they show up in our minds without reason or knowing why they have been brought to the forefront. Suddenly, a memory appears. Maybe it was triggered by an event that just occurred. Who knows? They just appear, in all their strength and force. They are too strong to be replaced by other, happier times even after we have moved past them. The emotions are so strong that they keep churning to the top and demanding our attention.
Perhaps these memories, especially those from our childhood, have seared our soul in some deep and ever-changing way. All I really know about these memories is that each time we do relive them, we learn just a little bit more about ourselves by looking at the arc of our life. And that never really gets old. As long as we take breaths, there is more to learn about whom we are and why we are here. Learning is the purpose of life; the reason each of us is given different abilities to help us make our way in life. The sharing of our learning is what connects us to each other and is a responsibility humans carry for being human. And maybe there is something you can learn from my life, if I am willing to feel these memories and write about them.
This is a difficult thing to do. But I will start my story long ago, with a day that started out as a day that seemed much like any other day to a boy like me, one who would be turning eight in just 55 days. On that day, at the beginning of the vicious `mber5 months in Nigeria, my mother, my five siblings, and I waited all day, all night, and then some, worry increasing by sun setting and then dawning again, for the return of my mother’s cherished husband and our loving father. We did not know as we waited that he would not return to us once more but be lost forever.
At the time, my father, who was the dean of studies for St. Anne’s Secondary School Umuobasi Amavo, had travelled by public transportation to Owerri to process a number of examination registration materials for his college students. On his way back, the car he boarded had a flat tire; the driver lost control, and the rest of the story’s details are beyond me. They are details that only those that were there can know for sure. But what we do know and what we scraped together from others is that the car was a 504 Wagon Peugeot and had too many passengers, which may have contributed to the tire going flat. When that happened, my dad was sitting at the back row seat with two other passengers. Even now, we only know that he sustained a massive head injury, one that caused immense and immediate damage, and he was pronounced dead by the time the emergency ambulance could get him to the hospital, which was such a long ways away.
We have heard that other passengers, interviewed not long after the accident, confessed that he was advising the driver not to touch the brakes; he knew what would happen if the driver tried to apply
the brakes to a car that had lost a tire with a flat. The story is told that the car tumbled several times and entered the bush, where it settled in a silent homage to the pain the accident caused and to the life that was lost in a moment. I can only imagine the state of his mind while the car was somersaulting over and over again. I can only imagine what his thoughts were as he breathed his last breath of fresh air. I imagine he fought to stay alive, refusing to take that last breath, knowing that he had a caring wife and six loving children awaiting his return, depending on him for their welfare.
As much as I see that day as one of my toughest days to endure and a turning point in my life, I strongly believe that it must have been a tougher day for him. They say these moments slow down dramatically, and if this is so, he must have had time to wonder how we could get by without him, moments to worry about his children’s future without a father. Though my dad did not own any personal car, I could not help but ask myself: “Instead of travelling by public transportation, could things have turned out different if my dad was driving his own car on that fateful day? What would our life have been if dad had survived the vehicle accident on that day?” Assuredly, he would have been there to care for our welfare and later help us make important career and life decisions. But really, to have someone who desires the best for their children, who demands the future be the best it can, is what a child really needs. And, as you see, we still had our mother. We still had that one parent to guide us.
The following day was the beginning of a new era for me. It was the beginning of my life without my father. My father was charismatic and had a warm heart. He was gentle; he was not the kind of father who would lay down the law by speaking harshly to his children. In retrospect, I could envisage my mother in her teary eyes looking up and asking God, “Why?” and entreating, “Oh Lord, how can we get by without Daddy?”
The future looked gloomy. How, we wondered, is my mother going to take care of six children with her associate degree in education and her marginal salary as a public school teacher? Where do we go from here? What will happen to us? How will we eat or pay the rent?
At that time, the social norm was for uncles and aunts of the children to choose who amongst the fatherless kids they could bring in to join their family. They could train the child and teach them a trade so the child could contribute and find a way to make a living. Despite the fact that one of my uncles was the incumbent Imo State commissioner for commerce and industry when my father died and several uncles were successful businessmen in different cities, I cannot recall if it was that none of my relatives offered to be of help to us or if my mum deliberately chose not to accept any of the six of us being sent to live with them. Somehow and for some reason, we stayed together.
Nonetheless, mother managed to bring a sense of harmony and security to our seven member family. We were forced into relocating from our cozy, three-bedroom, single-family home to a 12-ft by 10-ft single room in the city; a single room for a mother and her six kids. We were in dire straits, and our mother was doing the best she could in facing this new life.
I remember all too well these days of our humble beginnings—the beginning of our days as a family without a father. I remember the meeting we had in our single room “home” when my mother told us of her dream, a grand dream to make sure that every one of us would become a college graduate. How this was going to happen, she had no idea. Neither did I, but she did promise that with trust in God and by all of us living in harmony and within our means, we would move through the difficult times to a better future.
………….
“We are going to live within our means, we are going to live truthfully, we are going to depend on each other, we are going to live an honest life, we are…if that means eating once in a day or fasting when you’re not supposed to, we are going to do it,” said Mother, making us understand the power of education. She explained how it is better to spend four or more years in college to build the qualifications to become a professional than to spend the time learning through apprenticeship or learning a roadside trade, which usually comes at lower cost to the parents but does not give the children the life a mother wants for her children.