[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]“I’m sorry mom. I’m sorry.” She didn’t quite understand what I was remorseful about. I’m not sure what was going on in her mind as I poured out how much I regretted my behavior. I finally had an outburst of sincere apologies. My actions...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]On account of the apparent recency of my brother’s incident, I wondered if the gutter event was the first time I saw mom in this shape. Perhaps, this semblance might have been the needle incident from just three years before when I was just...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]“It will be three years next week since the accident!” Tears filled my mother’s eyes as soon as the first word came out of her mouth. She trembled in her words. Anxious about what was to come, she gaped at me, and then back...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]I remember friends and family members traveled from various parts of the country a week before the housewarming celebration. Dad’s three stepmothers and many half-sisters that I’m not sure if I knew them all were also invited. A party that was meant to be...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]When I turned seven years old, my father built his house. It was my third year in primary school. The memory of the longest short drive was a lifetime of vision for me, though I didn’t very well understand the uncanny feeling behind the...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]The earliest memory of my childhood begins with tripping into a roadside gutter in front of my late grandfather’s house. The gutters in my neighborhood were never covered from the public, so they were constantly littered with all forms of rubbish you could imagine....
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]“Your father remained in grandpa’s house. He chose to stay in a separate building from where his late dad and I lived. However, ever since your uncles died, the family history of violent accidents continued.” Grandma continued. “By 1979, less than two years later,...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]“The six sons fulfilled your grandfather’s wish. If only we knew the price for doing so, we could have forestalled the havoc that followed his burial. It’s such a shame you never met any of them. Is it the resemblance amongst them or the...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]One day, a hunter showed up at my father’s school. He wanted to speak with the principal. “I believe one of your students is living in the forest,” said the hunter. “What? In the woods?” the principal exclaimed. “No,” said the hunter. “I said ‘forest’. In fact,...
[optin-monster-shortcode id="svinre9hu8xnvg38zcgh"]“In 1977, three years before you were born, your grandfather died,” my father’s mother told me. We called my grandmother Alhaja, the revered name for Muslim women who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. I had always hung on Alhaja’s every word, but this...
What is Life? Is it as the concordance described it, or a tangible to be numbered, counted or predicted as willed? Is life, in fact, multiple or unchangeably a matter of one chance for one life? Levity as often fetched in the absence of reasons...
When I was a child, maybe about six years of age or less, whichever, I was old enough to understand that I was particularly captivated by music, but not all kinds. It was in the mid to late 80s, and for some reason, I wasn’t...
Father One more time, I looked out my lair, with tears streaming down my face. My eagle glides through the air, forcing its way through the thick, dark trace, up into the night sky. I’d just left a chapter of my dream to turn a new page, where I could become a better...
What is Life? Is it as the concordance described it, or a tangible to be numbered, counted or predicted as willed? Is life, in fact, multiple or unchangeably a matter of one chance for one life? Levity as often fetched in the absence of reasons...
It was one of such evenings we wished the tutor wouldn’t show up for our evening classes. The clock ticked on the wall of the children’s parlor as we waited patiently for him to arrive. The time was quarter before 4 pm so he would...
Not all days were bad days with my father. The first time of three occasions my dad ever told me how much he loved me as a son was about 6:00 am after he'd returned from overnight partying, drunk to stupor. So he was on...
My father demanded us to be the best intellectually and toughest emotionally. We felt the constant need to impress him academically. However, the growing feeling of dejection and increasing need for affection was undeniable. Initially, for me, it was clearly out of fear of what...
I heard my dad walk down the hallway. I could feel the vibrations from the terrazzo laden floor as he took each footstep down the hall. A sturdy man, my father was. About five feet eleven, light complexioned, and well-built but not overweight. At thirty-two,...
One of the lessons grandma once gave that stayed with me was about knowledge. "Knowledge can be so complicated," She said. "We understand circumstances best through life experiences. Otherwise, they are mere words. We can speak words, write them when prompted to, and pretend we...
What is Life? Is it as the concordance described it, or a tangible to be numbered, counted or predicted as willed? Is life, in fact, multiple or unchangeably a matter of one chance for one life? Levity as often fetched in the absence of reasons...