I can never forget the day. Firmly etched in my memory, it illustrates in many ways what my mother, Grace Oluyemi Fatade, who turned 70 on March 6, stands for and how she sees motherhood.
It was a sunny day, one of such that the tropical sun hits you badly that you feel like walking naked. Not sure if I was in lower six or upper six which makes me either 16 or 17, those heady teenage years when I was battling with the fact that some of my mates were already at universities and there I was still living with my parents. None of my siblings were back from their schools and my father too was not at home. After saying, ” E ku ile ma,” I headed straight for the kitchen, the pots were empty and no plate was covered just like the food warmers were empty. It dawned on me, no food yet that late afternoon even when the bacteria in my stomach were already gnawing at its wall.
I went back to the living room and asked Iya Wale, as she is more known, for my food. She was busy with an orange and for my mother, eating an orange is an exercise in patience and tenacity. The world waits when she is dealing with an orange, her favourite fruit. Barely glancing at me, she answered that she was waiting on us all to come back and start preparing lunch. “So what about your school food?” I asked, referring to the meal the vendors usually serve her as the headmistress and which she never eats. “I gave it to the girl who carried my bag home,” she answered. Then I felt as if I was carrying the weight of the entire world as my hunger pang increases. Sulking, I headed for my room to go and lick my wounds. Immediately, she got into the mood that leaves nobody in doubt who calls the shot without shouting but still forcefully enough, ‘Nibo lo n lo? Bo si kitchen fun mi jo.”
Reluctantly, I went to the kitchen and she followed me laying out everything that we needed to prepare lunch. It was one of those days we had to cook obe ata, the traditional Yoruba soup, and ewedu – jute leaves I think – before preparing amala. The hunger increased the more, yet no help was available. “Where are all these people? I asked her. She answered, “Will you concentrate on what I asked you to do and stop bothering about them,” she answered. I had to pluck the ooyo leaves from the stem tearing them at the vein as she wants while she washed the meat pieces. There was a heap that day as if she deliberately did that to punish me, I kept plucking. She later asked me to stop and turn on the pepper mill to grind the pepper, which she had also washed. I returned to plucking ooyo after which I washed it and sieve it so that nothing is wasted, another of her mantra.
That was when I lost concentration and poured the water used in washing it to the pot already on fire. With my back to her, Iya Wale landed me one of her trademark abara, that slap she only seemed to know how best to serve. It stung adding more agony to the hunger, she gave me the second one and suddenly my senses came back. Flinging the bowl, I made for the kitchen door and bolted. She had anticipated my move and attempted to block me, but I was too quick for her. Immediately I left the house as she said, “Ma pada wo’le yi loni o.” The hunger disappeared as I headed for my friend’s house on the same street. Unfortunately, he was not yet back from school and his mum, another firebrand, was not around too. Loitering around, my grandfather appeared clutching his usual sack, which I know, would satiate my hunger. Sensing that something was amiss, Ajani Oladapo who knew his daughter well just patted my head asking what it was between the two of us as we walked back to our house. I did not want to go in, as I feared another round of abara, but my grandfather assured me that Olu, as he always called her, would not beat me in his presence. He was my saviour that day, as he pleaded with my mother not to beat me any further. Quickly, I demolished the esuru in my grandfather’s sack, as I knew if I waited, she might not allow me to eat until we finished the cooking I abandoned.
Interestingly, Iya Wale does not remember the encounter today and that’s typical of her. There were many of such for one to stand out, but I’ve never forgotten. This woman remains the greatest human influence on me that whenever I see her name popped on my phone now, I feel like she is standing on my shoulders. I used to think that the phrase, ‘benevolent dictator’ was coined solely for my mother though I know better now. She is cut in the mould of “tough love” those who believe that children needed an iron hand to be on the right path and fortunately it has served her well. She broods no dissent and you dare not disobey her instructions as obedience has its rewards just as disobedience too is amply rewarded. We joke with her that you cannot pass any examinations she sets, as sometimes she is the only one who knows her questions. The first of 16 children, she effortlessly glides, leading her siblings, adults in their own ways, refusing to pitch tent even when some edge her along that line.
But she loved and still loves us. Tough love, but love nevertheless. I remember telling my paternal grandmother who was living with us then that she was my mother and not Iya Wale. She disabused my mind saying that my mother truly love me and if one thought that would bother my mother, she did not flinch merely saying that she expressed similar sentiments about her own mother when she was younger. She taught us many things that listing them is an exercise in futility or the issue is what did she not teach us? Mundane things like shoe polishing and fixing buttons and major stuff like cooking, housekeeping and ironing. She is also at home with fractions while gerunds are not strange to her. My mother is the one who in those days of letter writing will send you a reply and your initial letter with red markings correcting your grammar. Long before gender mainstreaming became a buzzword, my mother ensured there was no discrimination in household chores, boys cook and girls cut grasses too. She ensured that we were surrounded by books and she subtly influenced our reading habits that all who lived with her, and there were many, are voracious readers today. She consumes the printed material marking something here and there calling your attention to a passage that she knows you will benefit from.
Few people can keep records like my mother and while I don’t have a record of everything I’ve written till date, she does even when I gave her the material originally. She is contented with whatever she has that I can truly say she is never envious of what others have. Constantly, she tells us that her standard is not the standard of others and so does not expect us to behave like others, as her expectations are higher than other mothers. Do I speak of how she would twist our ears during worship services because we were noisy or not dancing properly? Or how she would tiptoe after us when she asked you to drop stuff into the bin and caught us dropping it to the floor? With an effervescent husband, my mother never struggled with her husband or competed with him and always refused to mediate between us in disagreements. She would also not support any mutiny against her husband, never failed to remind us that, “he’s my husband.”
Not really comfortable amidst crowd as she is homely to a fault, I sometimes think she would have got more if she had been better at making friends. Since she lost her closest friend in 1992, she never had any confidant who understands her like the late friend as she always say, “My family is my friend.” And truly to her, the family is everything. In retirement, her life revolves round her local Baptist church where she serves as a deaconess, her husband, pensioners association, children, grandchildren and extended family members. Asked what she wanted for her 70th, she said simply, “Anything you decide is okay.” Typical, always contented. Happy Birthday, Iya Wale, I wouldn’t trade you for another.
- Fatade is a journalist in Lagos.
