From: Norm Hums <Nhums@rocket3mail.com>
To: Lassy Hums <Hotlass4real@gmail.com>
Cc:
Subject: Dear Lass

How do you begin a story? How far would you go to cover up a lie? How far is far too far that you can not return? And when you do decide to, what would you give for redemption?

You don’t know me, I hope you will, or I hoped you did, if this mail doesn’t end in your spam box and you are patient enough not to delete it, then I should be so lucky.

I want to tell you about me and my relationship with you, I do not know if what I have to say is interesting or worth telling but I think it should be told, this is all I’m ever going to say about my life journey and by God I’m writing it an Email, smh.

I will not bore you with the details of my childhood, it was normal. It wasn’t one of extreme poverty or wealth, just an average family with hopes of a better tomorrow. there were a number of things I wanted to be when I grew up, a doctor, but then I didn’t like blood and I never quite got the hang of mathematics required to be enrolled in science classes. There were other things I wanted to be too, but excuses, life and my skill set pruned them out.

I tried my hands in writing and did put out a few good but unpublished poems and short stories, mostly because I was too lazy to write a novel.

But all this doesn’t concern you, I sent this email to explain why I left, I have seen a couple of movies and online clips to understand that children blame themselves when they are abandoned. I hope the explanations I am about to give will help save you from carrying such a burden.

THE JOURNEY
I’m not a hero, I didn’t leave to save you or your mum from some terrible fate, no. I left because of the consequences of my actions, I left because I made bad decisions that cost me all I had and probably some part of your future, to quote Pete Edochie “my continued stay would have been nothing but an extension of my irrelevance”.

The day I left I had nothing on me, and no idea how to reach where I was going, my destination was outside our country of birth, nowhere particularly, but any space outside the geographical expression called Nigeria. Your mum and my mother were in the room of my Mum’s house and I was supposed to be watching you in the parlor.

Ladi, your mum, intentionally kept you there with me, because I suppose a part of her knew, she had loved me too much for too long not to know what I was thinking, she kept you with me as an anchor, to remind me of what I still had, of what I hadn’t lost. She knew I was going to do something, she feared the worst, she thought I might hurt myself, but the part she didn’t know was that I was too much of a coward posing as a pragmatist to end my own life.

Ladi was the only one that saw through my empty smiles and reassuring laughter, and knew that it was the hollow sound of a man who had crashed. She prayed every night and held me tighter every night, she came back home from work early, and never went out with friends, always there, mothering me more than she was you, but it was like pumping air into a leaky balloon, there was only so much she could do.

On the day I left, she had just come from the market, it was a Saturday, no work. She went into my mother’s room to speak to her and tell her how expensive things were. I had packed a bag while she was in the market, mother saw me packing the bag, we gave each other a knowing look and I saw her heartbreak, she knew in that instant that in all likelihood, it would be the last time we would see before one of us would die. If my journey didn’t kill me, time and age would take her before I could return. And so while you sat there, a child playing with some of the toys we were able to take from our former apartment, I walked out and shut the door gently, so Ladi would not hear.

I trekked to the junction, where the women sold wrinkled tomatoes and stale dry fish. Then I trekked to the market, doubting myself as I grew wearier, ‘where you dey go? Are you five, getting angry at mummy and running from home? Will you turn back and head home? Is this really what you want to do to Ladi?”.

But there was something momentous about that look I had exchanged with my mother, I knew then that I couldn’t turn back, I understood later on that it was a moment of sadness, reality and pride all mixed into one, she was sad to see me go but she had been also expectant, waiting, preferring to see me try rather than waste away like a sagging pawpaw that had become too ripe on the tree.

So I kept trekking, at the market, I met a Northern trucker returning from Onitsha, on his way to Jos to bring more goods, he had spent the night in Okene and was now willing to load palm oil to be delivered in some different locations up north, before finally proceeding to Jos.
“you be Igbo?”
“no” I replied
“you sure? I no trust this Igbo people?” he bit into a kola
“yes I am, I am from Okene”
He looked at me bemused, “anebira uvin?”

I knew he was from Okene the moment he asked if I was Igbo, but I acted surprised still that he spoke my language. He was one of the many Ebiras who liked to pretend that they were of Hausa origin, because of the access it gave them and the illusion of power by association they enjoyed.

We spoke in ebira from then on, he wanted to know more but recent events had thought me to keep quiet and listen more. My phone had rung 4 times, it was Ladi, I switched it off, coz I knew she would start texting and my resolve would be broken. The truck driver knew I had no money, he said he could tell I was educated, and educated people are only nice and gentle when they needed help,

“*akowe, you go school, you no get work ba? hehehehe, na so life be”. I would have told him off, tell him who I was or used to be and the way things were but I could see the joy in his face, in having a man like me at his mercy. He offered a ride to Jos, in return for my services to load and offload palm oil through the journey. Our first stop was Abuja, it had been six months since we (yourself, Ladi a& I) had been forced to leave.

I’ll stop here, I have to go now Lass, its morning here, and I need to clean the snow from the driveway before I head out. How is Ladi? Could you please not tell her about this mail.

NORM

*akowe: an ebira term loosely used to refer to an educated person
* anebira Uvin?: translation "you are ebira?"

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