Flickers of emotionsâŠ
I still remember the color of her eyes. The alluring glint that twinkled whenever she blinked. I remember her smiles and laugher that day as we walked home from school, hand in hand.
âKedu ka Ễlá» akwỄkwá» dá» taa?â(How was school today?) She had asked in our native Igbo dialect.
School that day had been bad. I got punished for not completing my homework.
Most days, she would walk me down the arithmetic road, hand in hand...like she always did. Until each problem found its solution and Math saw me smile.
Other days, when the arithmetic got too tiring, she would pat me on the back, casting her dreamy spells on me. My mum was a magician. And somehow, I found heaven in this magician who could bend nature and time to make me happy. Who would stay awake to watch me sleep and would be awake when I wake in the morn. Her soup was the Garden of Eden and her smile was paradise...
That day, in childish insolence, I feigned a frown as we walked down the gloaming but familiar path, watching her try to make me laugh. I kept staring into her eyesâ a wind-swept ocean of gems, radiating like the morning sun. She was truly beautiful and I prayed to look just like her as I grew.
That day, as she turned to me with a proud face seeing I smiled, I was transfixed in my mother's salient gaze as she was in mine. That moment was easily the best moment of my life.
She thought only of me and nothing else. Not even about the speeding oncoming bus that day, as she danced on the road. In those last moments, which seemed to last forever, I saw her eyes, radiant as ever and her lips, smiling as always, assuring me all was well. And in a flash...a blurry trance, I saw her smile as the bus came...I wish she didn't pay so much attention to me...
Time stood still, mum, at those moments youâd hold my hand and kiss my forehead. Those moments youâd sit beside and read me a story. You taught me all I know. You were my best, mum and youâll forever remain My Supermum till we meet again in a perfect worldâŠin resplendent Utopia.