THE CHURCH GATE

Her blue and black worn out wrapper was now the color of red earth with patches of dirt that almost gave it a new design of its own. Maybe the dirt was from the soil on which she had spread it to protect the dirty flowered gown she was wearing. I wondered why she bothered protecting the gown. Maybe the dirt had come from the nearby gutter that contained water from shops and restaurants. I wondered if the shoe prints on her gown were from the sole of the shoes of little kids that were running around her, either to play with her or to drop poorly folded ten or twenty naira notes given to them by their parents into her bowel. The big pink rose flower designs on her gown had stains of oil on them, yellow dots at various parts. It now blended with the material that one could assume that it was part of the designs of the gown. The edges of her wrapper had become her own personal bank. She occasionally emptied the money in the bowel and folded them into one end of her wrapper, forming a cylindrical shape. The umbrella that protected her from the sun seemed to be the only clean thing she was holding. Sister Ruth had told me it was recently given to her by a parishioner who thought the one she had was worn out and was not protecting her from the sun and rain. Sister Ruth once told me stories about her. Stories about things that happened before I was born. She had told me about how Martha had sane and insane days, therefore the parish priest asked her to join in sweeping the church premises for very little amount of money and food. How they had helped her with other jobs because she was known as the ‘kind, pregnant beggar’ and everybody loved her but her mental illness worsened as her insane days turned out to be more than her sane days. She somehow still found her way back to the church gates. How one of the parishioners who was a doctor had helped deliver me when she got into labor on one of her sane days and how she begged Sister Ruth to take me while screaming ‘I want a better life for her’. I never got tired of hearing Sister Ruth tell me about her. I wanted to see her, and there I was looking at her from King’s kitchen, a restaurant directly opposite the street of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Her hair looked like the newest rat niche, brown, tattered and in short, messy straws, resembling an unplanned dreadlock. It reminded me of the little kids that were usually brought to the convent to see Sister Ruth. She called them ‘dada’ and always took them to the priest with their parents. The kids usually came back without their hair. I often wondered where the hair went, until I one day decided to go with Sister Ruth. I watched Farther Max slowly cut them off after a series of prayers while the kids cried and fought for freedom from the priest.  Her hair reminded me of the hair of those ‘dada’ kids before they visited the priest. I looked at myself in my neat, well-ironed clothe and expensive weave and I felt guilty. Guilty for being lucky, lucky enough to be taken in by the church, or like Fr. Max would say ‘lucky enough to be saved by the church’, lucky enough to be raised by Sister Ruth, lucky enough to have gotten an international scholarship. I wanted to walk up to her, to look into her eyes. Into the eyes of my mother. To look past the dirt to the person that had given me life. I couldn’t see her the way I wanted to from my seat in the restaurant. 

Standing up from my seat with shaky legs, I made my way to where she was. I crossed the street and headed towards her.  My heart beating so fast, I thought I would have a heart attack. I got to the gate and stood before her. She looked up at me and I saw her face. Her eyes were soulful. They had life in them. She looked like she had not slept for a century with the eye bags under her eyes. Or maybe it was from her lack of shelter. She was fair in complexion,  like me but you could hardly tell in between the black patches of something I couldn’t really tell. I was mute for a while. I could see her now, the light in her eyes that has so been subdued by suffering and sickness, the beauty on her face that has been replaced by days of dirt. I felt my eyes becoming hot as tears began to form inside them. My chest tightening as I clenched my palms forming a fist. I wanted to cry. I wanted to burst into uncontrollable tears but it wasn’t because of her physical appearance. It wasn’t because of all the things people were seeing. It was because of all the things they couldn’t see. It was because of the life I had just seen in her, one she couldn’t live like she wanted but had given me. It was because I looked at her and I saw myself. She was beautiful. She was my mother.   I wanted to waive a hand and change her physical appearance in a way that it would align with all the beauty within her. Sister Ruth had warned me of her appearance. She had told me that I could not handle seeing her but I didn’t listen. In her exact words 

‘Elizabeth, Your mother is sick. She is mentally ill. You can’t help her”.  

I was glad I didn’t listen to her because if I had, Sister Ruth’s words would have been my story of her. I would never have gotten the opportunity to see all that she is despite that. I took out 3000 naira from my purse and handed to her. She looked at the money and then back at me as if she wasn’t sure I meant to give it to her. I figured she was already used to smaller amounts. Unsure of how to react, she took the money but didn’t put it into the bowel. She stared at me, her eyes searching for something, something I wasn’t sure of. She finally said ‘thank you’, exposing her brown teeth.  Tears rushed down my face as I saw her gap teeth. It looked a lot like mine. I didn’t want to cry in front of her so I walked away and as I did, I watched her quickly fold the money into her wrapper like she did with the rest of her money but this time she was faster.  She probably thought I would change my mind when I come back to my senses and remember just how much I had given her. Or maybe she was hiding it from other people. I wasn’t sure. I made my way to the Grotto of the Virgin Mary beside the Parish chapel and closest to the gate and as I knelt down before the statue, more tears let themselves out and flowed like rain down my face. Each round of tear chasing after the other, refusing to give me time to breathe. The tightness in my chest increased and I opened my mouth to take in a larger amount of air since my nose clearly wasn’t doing a good enough job. I was going to go home and speak to Sister Ruth about putting her in a psychiatric institution, where I could go visit her and get her clean clothes and a cream. A good cream. I would talk to her whenever I visit, and when the time is right, I would call her MOTHER.  

Yes, she is mentally ill but she is my mother.