One must understand that people, no matter who, no matter what position they are, no matter how disciplined, are wired up with emotions, and irrespective of who they are, must burst up sometimes when they’re encumbered with a lot, or when they they’ve reached breaking point.
No one is entirely perfect when it comes to emotions. When that spot that spikes you gets the heat, you’re going to respond.
People can be crazy, that is well understood. Like there are people who just think they can burst up anytime any day to anyone. In my country, that is quite the order.
No one wants to be trampled on. Everyone is the boss at their gates, you dare not pass the limit.
Quite frankly, one can never be too careful or defensive sometimes, but there are considerable situations to this.
I want to tell you a story of people reaching breaking point and bursting up, and others being the water that quenches the burn.
I have a son, his name is Happy. He’s my pride. He’s my biggest achievement. Although he’s not all good, but he seldom disappoints the family, I mean, I can count how many times I’ve quite regretted giving birth to him, but that feeling didn’t stay.
There are things he’s bad at; like he’s never getting good grades in school, not like he fails, but he struggles to get to average. He didn’t read his books all the time, Happy is interested in football and he plays well.
One other thing is, I smell he’s a womanizer at his young age. He comes home with “friends” — lady friends of which I can boldly say he sleeps with. He’s never introduce one to me as his girlfriend, and he’s twenty two.
I’ve had countless compliments on his level of respect and selflessness. He’s never insulted me. He’s never stood up to my face to reply or say anything offensive.
He’s obedient in quite a lot of things. He’s not the kind of kid one would get too worried over. He stayed clear from dangerous friends since he had a fight with a guy who made out with his girlfriend. Although I heard the story from another girl, he never told me he had a fight over a girl. I don’t know why he thinks I shouldn’t know these things about him.
He came home one evening and went straight to his room without greeting us, his parents who were right there in the sitting room. Before then, he’d gone to school on a wrong mood, he didn’t watch the plates, he didn’t eat, he was back and he had gone straight to his room.
I understand if it was a foreign, white country, the parents would want to find out what was wrong tenderly, or even give him some time so he could sober from whatever it was that was eating him—more so, he hadn’t displayed this kind of attitude before.
His dad wanted to confront him, but I took his place instead. When I got there, he was lying on the bed with his face buried in a pillow. I called him and asked what it was that was eating him up and he said ‘nothing’… I wasn’t satisfied, so I decided to be a little aggressive.
But it was a wrong idea, because he shouted at me for the first time. He even asked me to leave his room. And I felt like, “this isn’t a movie, we’re Nigerians and no matter what you’re going through, you swallow it and give your elders the respect they deserve.”
My husband heard my son, and it was quite hell for Happy, because he was beaten and asked to do the house chores; of which he obeyed. But he never spoke of what the matter was.
It was after two weeks I got a chance to meet one of his school mates who was asking if he was doing well. I had to ask what happened in their school. He told me Happy’s best friend died.
Believe me, I actually thought that wasn’t an issue that would prompt that act of screaming at his mother…
When I confronted him after some few days, he told me his best friend died, and all the stories behind his actions.
He had a crush on a girl, he told his friend whom already had same feeling towards same girl, his Friend never spoke about his feelings to him. He went ahead asked the lady out and Happy was angry about it. He hated his friend, once or twice, they fought, they became enemies, but like he said, he loved his friend so dearly he wanted to reconcile before he got hit by a truck.
His regrets were, he was with a best friend he knew for about 8 years, and became enemies with him about a week to his death. And he wasn’t in peace with himself.
He was going through a lot. But the ‘African parents’ in us wouldn’t let us treat the situation nicely.
