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"Success and failure can both make you lose appetite and concentration, don't let it bother you or over-excite you. Just think them away as a mere thing that has just happened and get along with your life." - Michael Bassey Johnson

I was in my class learning when Mama came in. Immediately I saw her, I knew that something was wrong. She looked dirty, her hair which was always neatly tied was scattered, and her eyes were swollen and red. She must have been crying, I thought. But Mama never cried. No matter how bad things got, she always had a smile on her face and was ever ready with a word or two to comfort others.
She spoke to my teacher who instructed me to pack up my books and go meet Mama which I did. We rode the bicycle home and on our way, people kept trying to say something to Mama but she replied no one. We got home to meet a crowd of people including my uncles and aunts in the compound. They created a way for Mama and I to walk through. I ran into the hut I shared with Ifeanyi to keep my books and go join the party that was definitely happening. Thoughts of beans cake and fried meat filled my head and I nearly missed seeing what was on Ifeanyi's part of the hut.
It was covered with the traditional Igbo George wrapper material. It was about the same size as Ifeanyi. I thought that he was playing games with me so I opened it. It was Ifeanyi but he was cold. His eyes were closed like he was asleep but I could not wake him up to come and join the party outside. Thinking that he was playing pranks, I went to call Mama to come and get him out. But for me to turn to leave the hut, she was there, standing quietly, watching Ifeanyi. I first noticed the tears in her eyes before the movement of her shoulders. She was crying. I told her that Ifeanyi was not standing up. That was when she began crying out loud. A very sad, painful sound.
I understood immediately. I ran out of the hut to go and tell Papa that Ifeanyi was dead. In Papa's hut, he was wrapped the same way Ifeanyi had been wrapped. I took the wrapper material of his head , felt his face, it was cold too. That was when I began crying. Mama, Daa Chikodi(Papa's only sister), and other women brought Mama into the hut. She was given black clothes to wear. I turned to Papa's body and continued crying. I must have slept off because I saw Papa. He cleaned the tears off my face, took me by the hand, and led me into the bush. He stopped at a tree, and with his knife, began digging the earth close to the root of the tree. After a while, he stopped digging and brought out a bag. He told me to give it to Mama. Then he walked me back to the compound, telling me different things. In the compound, he pointed at Mazi Chimezie(Papa's only brother) and said that Mama should trust only him.
I woke up and Papa was gone. I tried sleeping again but I could not. I was alone with Mama in the hut. Her hair had been shaved, she had on the black clothes, but there were no more tears in her eyes. I told her my dream and her only reaction was to touch my head then her hand came down to my hands. She never let me out of her sight or her side. Through the days of the funeral rites, the funeral, and the days that followed, Mama kept me by her side. No one was nice to us. Daa Chikodi who used to borrow Mama's wrappers was now terrible to Mama, calling her all sorts of bad names.
After a year of mourning, Mama went back to the school for a job but none was given to her. Neither was I accepted into school. Mama went to the farms to assist Mazi Chimezie who had been taking care of them during Mama's mourning period. Mama met Daa Chikodi to negotiate if I could assist Daa Chikodi at the market while she(Mama) was at the farms. Daa Chikodi refused, and that was when she told me that Mama and I went around with bad luck. That was when she made that statement that I never forgot. Nobody sold things to us at the market, neither did they help us in anyway.
Mama, tired of it all, sold the farms to Mazi Chimezie, packed up our things and early in the morning, we left for the bus station. But before we left, I took Mama to the tree in the bush that Papa had taken me to in my dream and pointed at the exact place for her to dig. She did. And like in the dream, the bag was there, heavy, and filled with money. We took it all to the bus station where we took a bus to the city. We stayed with one of Mama's childhood friends who was married before we got our own place.
I was accepted into a school and Mama began a business, selling things at my school's gate.
Fourteen years later, we went back to the village for Mazi Chimezie's funeral. Word got around of our presence. Daa Chikodi came to greet us as we were about driving out. She had recently lost her husband and two of her children in a ghastly car crash. She was alone, in black clothes, head shaved, with no one to talk to or to help her. The tag she had put on us years ago was now on her. But, rather than give her a piece of what she gave us, Mama gave her some money for her to come visit us in the city whenever she wanted to.
What goes around comes around...


- The Lady

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

Galatians 6:7-8