Dear Taiwo,Please, help me, I believe there is the need for me to act fast before my mother dies of heartache.I am a regular reader of your column, and I read with dismay, the story of Itunu, which ran for two weeks on this page.It is a pity the way her mother treated her. It is such a shame, because a good mother is like a precious stone and the best gift God can give to anyone on earth. Anyone who does not have a good mother is very unfortunate.Her story, however, gave me the encouragement and conviction that I have a duty towards my mother. It woke me from my deep slumber of self-pity and moved me into action. Because she is a rare gem and must not be allowed to suffer the way she is now because of my fathers betrayal. I need a solution to the serious problems going on in our home now and above all, prayers for my mother so that she can take the right decision and live.I am a final year student in one of Nigerias most prestigious universities and I have always known our home to be a place filled with love, joy, laughter and fun until a fateful day, when I overheard my fathers conversation with one of our neighbours over the issue of their housemaid. My mother, a nurse worked at one of the federal institutions, which often took her away from home on night duties.Whenever she had to go on night duty, taking care of my siblings became my responsibility. Before this day, I used to wonder why my mother did not employ a housemaid, just like the other families in the neighbourhood where we lived.We stayed in a building, with four different flats and almost every other family then had a maid.I was not too young. I was in Junior Secondary School (JSS) Three. I did not grow up to know my father like every other children. My father left my mother to take care of my two siblings and I when we were very young. He left her for overseas to study and work; but he neither communicated nor sent money to us for years. He left when my youngest sibling was just a baby. I grew up with the feeling that he was dead, but my mother always said he was alive and he would come back.He did, precisely when I was in JSS One. I heard all that happened our father left mum on the pretext of going abroad to study and work. He actually went with another woman, and came back like a prodigal son, when the relationship went sour.While he was away, mum took care of us single- handed. Family members and friends intervened and dad came back to us. Of course, we all loved the fact that he came back, and that our family became whole again. He had no job, mum became the bread winner.Trust her, ever hardworking, she never complained. She resolved to doing some extra work so as to make ends meet.She opened a small chemist shop in our neighbourhood, where she sold drugs and treated people for small ailments. Days before I heard of daddys atrocities, my mother called our neighbours attention to the fact that something was wrong with Rashidat, her housemaid. I heard mummy telling her to do something about the odour emanating from Rashidats body, she replied and told my mother, that she had also noticed and it kept baffling her because she could not fathom what befell rashidat. Mummy promised to look into the cause. but she was unable to do this immediately, because of her shift throughout that week.Three days after mummys discussion with our neighbour, daddy had a visitor. I was supposed to be sleeping after putting my siblings to bed, but I wasnt. I wouldnt have made any issue of our neighbours visit, if they had not asked daddy if my siblings and I were asleep as we must not hear what they came to discuss with him. When I heard this, I pretended to have slept, especially when daddy came to check on us.I heard them discussing with daddy, when the couple queried their housemaid, when they percieved that all was not well with her and they stated mummys observation too. They however, learnt that my daddy impregnated Rashidat and gave her some drugs to abort the pregnancy. The odour oozing out of her, was as a result of incomplete abortion. However, daddy must act fast before the girl died or something tragic happened to her.Our neighbours wife insisted on telling my mother, but her husband warned her not to as their mission was not to disrupt our home.They left after daddy promised to get some money so that Rashidat would be taken to the hospital for proper treatment. You would not believe that my mother was the one who eventually took Rashidat to a private hospital after she was told that she was pregnant and took some drugs to abort the pregnancy and that the stench from her was a result of incomplete abortion. At this stage, I wanted to tell my mother all I heard, but my immediate younger brother warned me against doing so because of what it could cost our family. I told him all I overheard when he woke up the following morning.(To be continued next week).
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