I can’t with certainty declare the number of times Mother begged God for a child, just one child. However, I know that she did endure the trauma of miscarriage not once, not twice, but thrice. Learning she was expecting ceased to excite her because she had learnt that hope could be devastating. Mother had started regarding pregnancies with some sort of scepticism. ‘I often asked myself why God had endowed me with a womb that had turned into a tomb for all life that dared to grow with suspicion. Was God taunting me? ’ When Mother discovered she was pregnant with me, she anticipated I would desert her like the rest of her unborn babies had. I, therefore, was a miracle baby—a gift from the heavens, a jewel that she regarded with such raw, unfiltered affection. I lived with her in a small single room in Kyengera, along Kampala – Masaka road when I came through. She had gone separate ways with my father shortly after I was born, which marked my father’s profound absence in my life. When I made two, my maternal relations took me away from my mother. They saw what mother was going through and decided I was burdening her with my endless demands for dedication, affection and attention. Mother had been diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia, which she battled with all her life. She suffered such intense episodes of pain and discomfort known as crises. Mother reluctantly gave me away because she had her demons of pain to contend with. She could not bear to watch me suffer from her difficult financial circumstances, conscious of my fair chances of growing up in a decent home with my maternal relations instead.
Mother moved on to Kampala, where she hoped to eke a living for herself. The City was cruel, so she left after a few years and returned to the countryside. I then moved in with her. We had an inseparable bond. When I grew older, she taught me to play draughts and chess, and that’s all we did, play board games and laugh. I looked forward to those games, to those moments with her. She would let me win because winning delighted me, and my delight was her delight. By that time, I was 12, her afflictions had taken a toll on her, and I started noticing the signs of mortality.
I barely knew my father. I barely knew him save that period when I was in my primary six and seven in Kampala. Mother had sent me to live with my father partly because he was better placed to look after me, and I guess she didn’t want her son to see her waste away. My father and mother had a complicated and toxic relationship that took a toll on my mother. For the entirety of my primary seven, I didn’t see Mother. I wondered what had befallen her. Why had mother forsaken me? I later learnt Father had threatened to beat her up if she attempted to see me at school. On the day I sat my final primary leaving exams, my mother and her sister came to my school and snatched me from under my father’s watchful eye. He had planned on picking me up the next day, which gave mother enough time to regain custody of me. Everything was rushed. Mother might have been frail in appearance, but her resolve was firm. I packed my property and was on the next bus to Mbarara before long. When mother deemed it safe, she called my father and said, ‘ I have picked my son.’ Father was heavily incensed by the mother’s actions that he cut us off, and I never heard from him again. He perhaps felt betrayed. When later, my mother reached out to him for aid, his ultimatum to pay maintenance was that I had to go and live under his roof. Mother predictably said no. She might have been poor, but her determination was steely and her pride intact.
I was the manifestation of my parents’ affections and afflictions. I went by Ibrahim at my mother’s home while everyone called me Andrew at my father’s home. My parents only seemed to agree on my surname, Lumbuye, a name passed down from my father’s relatives.
My mother and I didn’t spend too much time in Mbarara. She again fell upon hard times and returned home. Mother had no source of income and largely depended on handouts from friends and family. My maternal uncle came through for my mother and me. He offered her aid from the bookshop he owned and offered to pay my school fees too. My uncle’s most generous gesture came from a position of affection, not one of obligation; his conduct showed it. My uncle became the father figure I direly needed. He took me under his protective wing. Not once did I feel inadequate. Uncle was not kind to just me. His cup of kindness brimmed and overflowed to even people not known to him. He ran a bookshop and allowed me to collect books with a few dog ears. I sold some of those to kids at school, but he didn’t know I was running an illicit book shop in school.
Despite how hard she laboured to hide her pains, my mother’s health rapidly deteriorated. In my senior four, she constantly fell ill. She, within her heart, knew her time had come. No one told me my mother was dying. No one let me return home. My people made an effort to keep me in boarding school because they did not want me to see mom in her last days. Taking care of a sickler is hugely expensive, yet uncle bore that burden with such grace and patience.
During my senior six vacation, I lived with mama, and we both knew she didn’t have much time left. Her impending death was the white elephant in the room. We never discussed it. Mother was in excruciating pain. I worried deeply for her. I worried I would someday walk into her room and find her gone. I hid my pains from my relations. Every night I’d watch her sleep. I used to cry myself to sleep. I acted like I didn’t notice how much she had shrunk. She needed blood transfusions every other week and a strict treatment regimen which I imagine she tired of, so she refused to prolong her pains. Every attempt to comfort her made her eyes misty. I then would hold her hand and break down with her. We both knew her here time was spent. Those tear sessions helped us bond and allowed us to grieve. Deep down in my heart, I was devastated. There are days I hoped she would find rest and relief from her throes. Mother died on that cold 12th Day of April in 2016. It was a Tuesday; there never was a darker Tuesday. Sickle cell anaemia is a monster. Mother died surrounded by the people she loved. She died in my arms at 20:05 hours. She died with the affirmation that her child only would be loved and always have a place among her people. My mother’s people never let her down on these spirited assurances.
Andrew Lumbuye Ibrahim, 22.