I still look back often with all intentions set to dig out the truth from the rubble of the past. On busy days, a glance ten years back looks hazy, marred with confusion and bitterness. So I never bother to look again and proceed to distract myself with the day’s activities. However, quiet days, sabbath and those many government-dished holidays provide an opportune disposition of mind for the past to creep in like smoke into a closed room. The false security of that bolted door is the clutched straw that never saved the drowning man.
Thus the thoughts and memories trickle in a single file, soon I have a multitude. The room is full from within. The door still bolted. The chaos that comes with a multitude is overwhelming; for each exhumed memory demands response and reaction. Suddenly I feel like crying, I feel like hiding, I feel shame, I feel bitterness, I feel pain, a sprinkle of joy and relief. A cocktail of everything. But then, I wipe my tears, count my breath under my nose, look up then face the multitude. Only this time, I’m headstrong to silence the noise and deal with it one at a time; that is if indeed I want to find the meaning of what happened. That has been the cycle for the past five years.
Ooh Maria! My dearest Maria ! You should see her beauty. To die for. Her hair is dark and silky. Sometimes I wish I had half of that genetic make up. Then I would not have this endless array of headwraps that attempt to salvage my bad hair days. But Maria is bald. Mother told Rita, our househelp, to shave her head fortnightly. Nevertheless, Maria welcomes me home with a smile that I never miss to spot from the gate. She calls out my name with gayness to her voice and gives me a half embrace – her body next to mine but her head extended away, her mind too, it seems. This doesn’t bother me nowadays.
Upon my arrival she promptly reminds me of her desire to join high school. I nod with affirmation to her dreams. Five years ago, finding my books unattended, she went ahead and scribbled through my text books, notebooks and Bible. The Bible! How audacious, I then thought. I am not proud of how I reacted. Maria is my older sister, older by ten years. Though we are not able to have the ordinary sister relationship, ours is out of the ordinary, in every way.
It’s been four years now since we made our last visit to the twenty – sixth man of cloth seeking for my sister’s deliverance and health. Mother did everything that could be done in those six years. She fueled that Toyota Corolla monthly for cross country trips to the next promising healer. Some came home and made mighty prayers with laying of hands. Along the way many gave up except one, an old blind man, who still prays for my sister.
Maria too had her share. For six years she slept with a Bible under her pillow, she was burnt with hot wax from red and black Holy candles, she bathed in salted water, she drank bitter herbs, she chanted ‘Holy Words’. She was on the receiving end of all twenty six individuals, each with their unique prescription for her healing.The twenty-six contacts were a collective effort of my mother’s ambition, concerned relatives and neighbours and occasionally from my dad and I. We too wanted to see her well. We were listening to every tele-evangelist, following through their healing sessions hoping that from at least one of them healing would come upon our house.
Each visit built our hopes only for it to be shattered when we returned home empty – not that we lost Maria rather our expectations were brutally shattered. Yet we dared again twenty five times. Part of the rubble that I waddle through with much remorse are the many instances I acted in ignorance. “Ignorance” is my attempt to disguise human wretchedness into something palatable for my conscience. My sister’s condition took her away from us with a genteel and brutal fade. A kind robber that took everything but gave us the time to grieve as it took away. After the illness, Maria, my mother’s daughter and my role model could barely complete a chore in the house. She couldn’t hold a conversation without murmuring to persons residing in our walls. She did bizarre things that stirred fury within me. One rainy day in the month of July, she walked out of the house and returned with muddy shoes only to walk with them into the house and to her bed. By that time the illness had wiped every essence that we identified Maria by and all that was left was a familiar stranger.
The strangeness came coupled with deep resentment. I continued schooling while Maria remained at home. I soon bridged the ten year gap and surpassed her academically. My life was progressing while hers regressed. She was the burden of the home while I studied to make home less burdensome. I was bitter that she did nothing to help herself while we broke our backs making her healthcare our business. The tempest raging in my heart broke out into hurtful words hurled at Maria and at other times I got physical. Despite her aloofness, it happens that during the confrontations she always cried.
The wretchedness herein lies in the fact that I thought my sister less human because of her condition. That I entertained my pride by thinking highly of my progress compared to her lack of. That I enacted my vengeance fueled with bitterness upon her through malicious words and hurt on her body. Wretched indeed. It hurts even more deeply knowing that the image of God in a man is not just represented by the functionality of our bodies and mind. It is neither measured by our fruitfulness or productivity on this side of heaven. Thus absence of either does not negate nor denounce the image of God in an individual. Hence Maria, though ill in mind, has much of the image of God for God’s spirit resides in her. Though helpless to my many evil advancements, my evil ways not only offended her but also God, who created her. I sinned against God and my sister. I have since repented and have been working to honour my sister as unto God. She is His beloved for whom He died. Who am I to come against that.
The rubble is less than yesterday and perhaps the thoughts will be less than a multitude. Maybe next holiday or sabbath or quiet day, my untamed ruminations guided by God will help me understand why my sister was never healed despite the many varied wails of prayer made unto heaven.
~Anonymous, 30th November.