“My step-grandmother, if you would call her that, was never one to care about those in the house except for her daughters, so as it was, my mother, being the first child of the house, had to raise herself and her other siblings by doing menial jobs all around.

Due to the lackadaisical behavior of the woman toward them, my mother’s food was mainly unripe paw-paw fruit or kernel nuts. I remember seeing some of her pictures from back then; she looked like a walking, breathing broomstick. I used to wonder how her clothes didn’t slip off her body.

She struggled throughout her primary to high school and couldn’t make it to college.

Her stepmother gradually and steadily moved the eyes of her father toward her own children, who were pampered, spoilt brats. They practically did nothing in the house but became supervisors and report-bringers of the house, reports that bare who did what job in the house and who didn’t, like Cinderella’s evil sisters.

In the night, the pitiful sighs of neighbors could be heard as people listened to the howls and cries of my mother and any of her siblings who didn’t perform all the tasks in the house while their step-siblings laughed like hyenas. The anger of this stepmother was that the first woman of the house, who was dead, had given birth to a son, but though she already had three children, all were daughters.

When she found out that she couldn’t conceive again, she decided to make sure she frustrated the other woman’s children. Time after time, people had reported her to the council, but each time, she rebuffed them, and the punishment increased on the children, but these so-called elders who were supposed to be the pillars of wisdom still kept mute, each one of them thinking first about his own family, thereby giving no help to these unfortunate souls. So they grew up knowing the definition of pain, grief, and suffering.”

The pain of thinking about this showed like a cloak on Simeon’s face, but he had to let this out in order to be free of this grief. So he continued painfully.

“My father was also an example of someone who tasted grief and pain. He was born into a family of eight, both parents and six siblings, though two of his siblings later kicked the bucket. He also was the firstborn and first son of his family. Living in a compound where everyone was bound by blood, though he couldn’t confidently call them his family, was a type of war on its own. This being that in this compound which housed his extended family, his life has been tried several times. I will start with my grandfather so that you will understand better.

My grandfather was formally in the secret service, which I found out later. He actually told us he was an electronic engineer before he resigned and became a government worker, and growing up in that same compound with his achievements, most of which he accomplished at a young age, began the episode of jealousy for the family.

It was like a battle line had been drawn. Upon that, he was the only full-blooded male child in the compound, as other male children had been adopted. It was like the every-day morning war cry was “Let us take his life,” “Let us take his life.”

He had to fight many verbal and non-verbal wars. All of these attacks had their reasons. As custom demanded, my family being from the lineage of kings, was about to get the crown as the other family already ruling could not produce a full-blooded male child. This was the tradition and custom of the community, but the ruling family decided that instead of my grandfather to get it, the crown should rather be taken away from the family, so they sought to take away his life. But as their attacks increased, my grandfather ran away from the house, thereby losing both the crown and the title due to him.

Some years later, he came back a married man. Somehow the people welcomed him and gave him back his land and properties. After all, they seemed to think the damage had already been done. Then, just as my grandfather seemed to be getting along with them, another green-eyed monster walked in. In the family, there seemed to be a streak of curse. The conceiving of the women of the family was very late. Some who had been married for three to five years were yet to conceive. Others who had succeeded miscarried their babies.

Then my grandmother became pregnant.

At first, the others were nonchalant as they expected her to miscarry the child, but they slowly observed that hours into days, days turned to months and then finally the ninth month. Some rumored that the baby was going to be a still birth. So they relaxed, waiting for the delivery day in order to laugh at her, but to their shock, on the night of the 14th day of April, the cry of a child was heard from the delivery room. They all came to the delivery room to be sure they heard right, and when they asked the delivery midwife, she joyously affirmed their fears but that was just the shocking part of the news. They were shocked by the core because not only was the child alive, it was a male child.

Hell broke loose!

There was so much confusion. My father would always tell me how his mother told him that she almost saw them run mad. They didn’t know if they should congratulate her or just leave. In the end, they chose to leave her and the child and go their separate ways in agony. Surprisingly, no congratulatory message was sent to the newest mother in the compound until she came back from the hospital. Then they started sending gifts and coming for visits. My grandmother, having seen and heard what they were capable of doing, was very wary of all of them.”