Thread by @nwaoma007

Through Her Eyes

1./ Ugonma stopped scrolling. Her attention was riveted to the Instablog post. “Member Protests Against Pastor Kumuyi Over The Introduction Of Unconventional Music Into Deeper Life Church!
 
Her lips curled downwards in a sneer.

2./ She shook her head derisively at the twists and turns of life.
 
What her siblings and her had gone through attending a similar fundamentalist Pentecostal church while growing up wasn’t a memory she wanted to revisit. God dey sha.

3./ Later that evening, whilst visiting her Mum, she couldn’t help crowing triumphantly as she flashed her phone with the headlines before her Mum’s face.

“Look at it Mum! Ngwanu! Look at it! Do you remember all those days when you forced us to attend that church with you?

4./ Look at it now! See these ones. Now they’re backtracking from their rigid old-time religion stance.”

Ugonma’s words were punctuated with hand and body gestures mimicking a confused dancer whose movements failed to coordinate with the drumbeats of the drummer.

5./ She went on; undeterred by her Mother’s nonplussed expression. Obviously her waving motion had prevented the bemused woman from reading the words on the phone screen Ugonma flashed under her nose. But Ugonma was past caring.

6./ Finally, she had been vindicated and by God she would have her say.

“Mummy, see it. All these man-made doctrines they propound and impose are made to control gullible people like you Mum. That’s what those rules are for. Many of those rules have no biblical backing;

7./ and they have even less to do with salvation.” Ugonma paused for a breath and her mum reached out.

“Nne let me see what you’re trying to show me now?” Her Mum’s tone was cajoling but Ugonma wasn’t done. She continued with her eyes flashing.

8./ “Now that they’ve seen that people ‘e mepe go anya’ (are more aware) people are enlightened & have a wider variety of ways to access God with funky New Testament preachers & online churches, and they are losing members, they are now adjusting the goalposts on technicalities.

9./ But Mummy, imagine how much wahala they’ve already caused for many people.”

Ugonma’s voice rose passionately with each word. Back in the day, she had battled long and hard with her mother about many of the restrictions.

10./ She freely admitted that she was no bible student; yet she had known from her small bible knowledge that some of the doctrines they were fed were unscriptural, controlling, overreaching by men who had deified themselves and been deified by their congregations.

11./By the time she left home to attend university, she had been in full rebellious mode. The upshot of it was that she lived a different life at school from the one she had been compelled to live at home.

12./ Again, Ugonma’s Mother reached out to gently take the phone her daughter was waving. This time Ugonma released it and Okpueze took the phone to carefully read what her daughter was flashing before her.

Reading it, she could understand her daughter’s feelings.

13./ But she knew there was so much her daughter wouldn’t and couldn’t understand. She was judging the past from the prism of a child’s viewpoint.
 
Okpueze looked piercingly at her daughter.

14./ Did Ugonma and her siblings never pause to ponder the incongruity of a socialite like herself “Okpueze” attending a church that required her to literally eschew all the accoutrements of her high-class social status?

Had they truly never wondered?
 
Okpueze smiled bitterly.

15./ She hadn’t always been a member of “The Kingdom of God Is Not Meat and Drink Ministry.” Life drove her there.

Her eyes dimmed and she was forcibly dragged back to a past she had never foreseen.
 
Her life and marriage had begun on a carefree note.

16./ Her husband, a British- trained engineer returned to Nigeria and was working for a multinational corporation. She was a young and beautiful bride. She had a secretarial job in one of the government ministries. Life was good. . .

17./ Until the 3rd year after the birth of her 3rd child and first son Chuchu,
Ugonma’s elder brother.

Chuchu was born at St. Nicholas hospital with no complications. He was a beautiful baby.

18./ She smiled ruefully, remembering that at the time, her only slight regret was that he hadn’t been a twin; she had yearned for twin boys. Ha! If only she knew.

One day, just before his 3rd birthday, long before the era of mobile phones or video-calling,

19./ while she was out at her antenatal classes, she was pregnant with Ugonma at the time, (according to the report she was given, a report that she could still remember verbatim years later) Chuchu had begun to run a high temperature.

20./ The barely literate nanny panicked and sought help from their neighbours. Long story short, various concoctions were administered as the temperature had triggered convulsions. By the time she returned, he had been convulsing nonstop for nearly an hour.

21./ She grabbed her baby but he was not responding when she called his name.

She rushed him to hospital. The doctors did their best, but the concoctions, some of which were toxic seemed to have complicated matters and there were no known antidotes for them.

22./ At a point in the course of that terrible night, the doctor took her aside and counselled her that in his opinion, her son had suffered significant periods of oxygen deprivation to the brain and that he would recommend taking the boy off life support.

23./The doctor recommended giving him comfort care until nature took its course rather than intensive care because he doubted the boy would ever be able to function with all his faculties. She remembered that phrase that sounded like a death sentence; “irreversible brain damage”.

24./ Okpueze had thanked the doctor for his honest professional opinion but refused to consent to transitioning to comfort care. Her son would be ok, yes, her son would be fine.

Her husband was out of the country at the time, she loved her Chuchu, he was such a delight.

25./ He was her first son after 2 daughters. God forbid that she do anything to cut his life short.
 
They were eventually discharged a week later. The change hadn’t been immediate but gradually, she noticed that he was not developing at the pace he ought.

26./Initially he went to school like the others but by age 7;(she had now given birth to Ugonma and her 2 younger brothers) it had become apparent that all was not well with Chukwuemeka.
 
Initially it was treated medically, they could afford various visits abroad to specialists.

27./Her husband’s office even subsidized some of the treatments & the care. All efforts were made to see if Chukwuemeka could be restored to full capacity.

By his 15th birthday, it was clear that he would never have the ability to function beyond the mental age of a 5 year old.

28./ Her Chuchu was not going to be a rocket scientist.
 
Okpueze was distraught. As long as the doctors had held out hope of one treatment or the other, she had soldiered on. Plastered a smile on her face when friends and frenemies alike asked about Chukwuemeka.

29./ It was the one question she dreaded. She began to hide him away. He wasn’t allowed out of his room when visitors came calling at their home because it was awkward. Here was this big child sometimes slobbering and acting like a baby.

30./ To save their collective blushes, he was restricted in so many ways. From being kept locked away in his room, to being isolated from his siblings. It was her shame that she sometimes felt like a bad mother for keeping him away from his siblings.

31./ Despite his sickness, Chuchu remained his naturally affectionate self but it took her some time to work through her feelings and love him unreservedly as he deserved.

Some days she ran out of love and regretted birthing him.

32./ Along the line, some of the medication he was prescribed made him violent towards his siblings and generally aggressive. There was talk of sending him off to an institution. It had even been tried but on a random, unscheduled visit by her husband,

33./ the lack of care and in fact abuse in some cases made them bring their son back home.

One day when Chuchu was 17, a colleague at work who knew of her struggles invited her to their church. In those days, faith healers were relatively new.

34./ The colleague told her that the pastor of her church performed miracles and maybe God would heal her son through the man of God. Having run out of medical options, Okpueze agreed.

35./ That was how she began a journey that would take her deeper and deeper into various faith-healer churches for the next 15 years.

Eventually after trying several such churches, they had settled at “The Kingdom of God Is Not Meat and Drink Ministries’ when Ugonma was 13.

36./She had stayed there for the next few years. The rules were strict about avoiding worldly things and living an austere and ascetic life because God did not like vanity.

37./ According to the man of God, avoiding these things would bring healing, cleanse their bodies and assure eternal life.
 
Suddenly from being a fashionable teenager, Ugonma and her elder sisters had to dress differently, almost dowdily.

38./ Her husband repeatedly pleaded with her to quit trying to force the hand of God. He had obliged her at the beginning by attending those churches but had eventually returned to his Anglican Church. In the course of time, he accepted a knighthood.

39./ She occasionally attended orthodox services with him, but stuck more determinedly to her “man of God.”

He however was now past caring about friends or frenemies. This was also true for Okpueze.

Both accepted Chuchu was the cross God gave them to bear.

40./But whereas her husband was bearing his cross with a sense of acceptance, Okpueze didn’t give up. She was determined that God could, & would restore her son.

She gradually pulled away from her social life, became deeply enmeshed in the Ministry &refused to listen to reason.

41./ It had been many years before she came to terms with the fact that her son wasn’t ever going to be healed.

She often had flashbacks to the conversation with the doctor that fateful night offering to take her son off life support and her staunch refusal.

42./ Knowing what she now did, she wondered if on that life-changing night, she would have chosen differently.

Who knew? Certainly not her.
 
She read what Ugonma flashed before her again and replied her daughter.

“Ugo, even the most knowledgeable men of God are men.

43./ Perhaps, he has come to a new realisation. Who are we to tell? As for my own choices, Nne, I hope and pray you never find yourself in the circumstances that I did which led to my choices. I’m sorry my choices hurt you, gbaghalum!”
 
The End