Ah What a Rainfall….a love poetry.

November 4, 2015November 7, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha38 Comments

Plip, plop, tlop tlop, goes the rain drops…

Sweet memories swirl in my mind
Of young days spent
getting soaked to the skin
With nothing akin to worry in sight
Just children, playing in the rain
Wiggling tiny waist and skinny bums
Ah! What a rainfall.

Of rainy days and hair gone nappy, spongy wild from wetness
Of mother dear telling us to hold our ears and listen well
We held our ears and listened well to the chastising
Not to play in the rain again
Until the next fall came.
Quickly forgetting our pulled ears,
Yet again we went. Little urchins we were.
Ah! What a rainfall.

Nostalgic memories of rainfall
Transport me to grandma’s detached warm kitchen
Of the earthen clay pot that contained the cool, refreshing water
Water so clear from the stream, with smoky sweet unique taste
Sitting on little stools watching the drip drops of rainfall
As it gathers in puddles before us
The chicken comes to roost and dry its feathers
Of the smell of roasted dry meat, spices and the sound of pounding mortar
Even the nanny goat likes the homey kitchen, it was warm for all.
Ah! What a rainfall.

Wistful memories of rainfall
Of the days of a blooming damsel
With hair woven in neat cornrows and powdered face to illuminate her glowing self
Rain drops avoided with care, cornrows must be kept in place.
Ah! What a rainfall.

Delicious memories are here with me
Of lying in your arms and listening to your heartbeats
They seem to rhyme with the drip drops of the rainfall
Of cuddling under the covers, as the windows mist over
Whispering sweet nonsense and laughing softly
To little jokes only known by the two of us
Ah! What a rainfall.

Dreamy memories of dreamy moments
Of wondrous yearnings and many birthing
As we clung to each other
Excluding any other
And basked in the warmth of our own dew drops
Ah! What a rainfall.

Desirous moments, may the rains fall
May they make pitter-patters all over the roof top
As you design your patterns of love all over
No longer soaked to the skin am I
yet I feel the drops of the rain within your heat
and it seeps into my heartbeats.
Ah! What a rainfall.

In response to The Daily Post prompt singing in the rain
Safe inside, toasty warm, while water pitter-patters on the roof… describe your perfect, rainy afternoon.

Blogging · Family · Life · Personal story

Growing Gains or should I say Pains?…Personal story

November 2, 2015November 3, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha50 Comments

Delving into my brain and trying to excavate a remembrance of a toy that my parents deprived me of in my archive of childhood memory bank, I come up a bit short.

Though I recollect begging off some Goody-Goody rubbery chocolate bite and Bazooka Joe chewing gum, from a childhood mate and wishing that I had my own kobo to purchase some. Those things were sweet!

It turned out that she had pinched some kobo’s from her mothers purse and the butt-cracking whoop she got sobered my aspirations in my head. You could hear her mothers paddling and querulous voice as well as my friends wailing in the entire neighbourhood.

Back then, your parents would discipline you openly and the auntie next door would probably chip in her own reprimand, to spice up matters. The fear and shame kept you on the straight and narrow for quite a long time. It was just the way things were.

My life was shaped with love, laughter, rebuke and encouragement and maybe I didn’t know better, but we hardly took much notice of material things that seemed lacking.

As a child, I was raised in a community where everyone was virtually at par in wealth. A decent home, a utility car to get you around, a university staff school for the children, a common playground and other haunts where we got up to all sorts of mischief.

In my minds eye, our parents pockets never overflowed with golden pennies but they provided the best of the basics and the little treats now and again, meant a whole lot.

Shopping malls did not dot the landscape as is obtainable these days and going to the few that existed then, was a treat in itself. Today’s digital gadgets were non-existent, even our television was a Black and White Grundig that came on only in the evenings after the National anthem and watching those cartoons was a privilege.

Most times, we amused ourselves creating our own kites, building cars from discarded tires, crocheting, skipping ropes, playing hopscotch, making pat-a-cakes from sand mounds, scrambling up mango or cashew trees and a myriad of things that children did.

Now and again, a friend would acquire a new toy doll or toy car and we shared in playing with it; of course with a promise to her/him that when he got ours, we would share with them as well.

Christmas and birthdays were beautiful and magical times spent with family and friends and then came the presents, usually something that was in vogue at that point in time. It seemed every little girl owned a rubber doll with sets of combs and what have you or a Raleigh bicycle with a little basket it front.

Now that I think of it, maybe the parents used to converge for a meeting to decide on the present theme for the year.

It was really a simpler life.

In response to NaBloPoMo November 2015 Prompts

Monday 2 November – What was the one toy that a friend had that you wished you had when you were little?

Image credit: Pinterest.

Hope · Life · The Daily Post · Writing

Friends of my heart…

October 30, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha20 Comments

Growing up in a small university community like I did, had lots of plus sides and that included having lots of childhood friends with whom I played and carried out our escapades until the ever present flow of life’s change caused us to drift apart.

I was lucky to have such childhood friends of my heart who occupy such special place in my memory bank and between these friends and large family, you had no need for an imaginary friend.

Thankfully, I am able to reconnect with a lot of them with the help of social media, while, unfortunately some of them have crossed over to the other side of the divide where the links of social media cannot traverse.

There are some of them I am yet to trace and a number of them come to my mind ever so often.

Dear Chinyelu Okonkwo,

Now and again I think about you and wonder if life is treating you well and where you are.

I haven’t seen you since we were ten and in my minds eye, you have stayed the same ten year old, precocious, vibrant friend of mine.

Naturally you would have aged like everyone else but for some reason, I can’t seem to visualize you beyond this age.

Whenever you come to my mind, I remember our child’s play of running round the school block of University Primary School, Nsukka, during break time and singing silly song’s.

I have searched now and again on social media, to see if I can find you but it hasn’t yet yielded any result.

Who knows maybe one day in this lifetime, if we still walk this side of the divide, we may yet reconnect.

Another childhood friend whom I wonder how she has fared with life is from Bangladesh and I had no idea that the name ‘Anu Misra’ was quite common until I attempted to trace her.

I found so many Anu’s, I have searched so many faces, but I couldn’t recognize any.

Maybe, this splendid exercise might yet yield some positive results. We never know these things.

In response to The Daily Post prompt Imaginary Friend

Many of us had imaginary friends as young children. If your imaginary friend grew up alongside you, what would his/her/its life be like today? (Didn’t have one? write about a non-imaginary friend you haven’t seen since childhood.)

Creative Writing · Hope · Love · Uncategorized

Slaying the giant…

June 26, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha2 Comments

Each day that dawned, was met with a fervent prayer, I was hoping for some miracle of healing and grace to occur but it seemed as if I was fighting a losing battle with a faceless giant that equally had a very big name.

I was still breast feeding my infant when I found the little bump. I mentioned it in passing to a friend over lunch and she suggested that I should see a doctor. She tried to reassure me that it was probably nothing to panic over, that I should try and do the needful to get it over and done with. I let it slide for a bit. Partially because I was in denial and maybe, I thought that the more I failed to acknowledge its presence, it would probably go away through wishful thinking after all, I was just 32 years old.

What I had also failed to tell her was that I did not have the funds to run the necessary tests. My pride stood in my way.
The fact of the matter is that the society where I came from was a society where medical intervention came at an enormous cost to its citizenry and money was not readily available. There was no available medical insurance for the commonest man and we depended heavily on local chemists for almost every ailment known to man. It was cheaper.

Yet that nagging fear could not be suppressed and I eventually summoned the courage to talk to a midwife during a routine clinical immunization for my child.
She palpated my breasts and in her exact words, told me that my breasts were turgid, possibly because I was still breastfeeding and the milk ducts were always filling up. She said that she couldn’t really feel anything and I left with a little sense of relief and hope in my heart.

Months went by and the bump became a sizable lump. I could no longer deny to myself that something was wrong. Scurrying around for much needed funds, I raised the prohibitive amount and traveled to the city to run the required mammography, biopsies, blood work and so forth. The results came back packing a punch. I had ductal carcinoma in situ – simply put, I had breast cancer.

I was numb from shock, even though a part of me was braced for any bad news, I still felt as if a wrecking ball had just hit me. I hesitated to share my news with anyone for a while. In the privacy of my closet, I simply railed at God in madness and sadness, oscillating between deep depression and the need to fight and stay alive. The pressure of it all sat heavily on my shoulders and each day was filled with indescribable heart ache.

To fight, I had to share my sad news with family and friends alike. They rallied around me, praying for me, raising money for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Due to the spread to both breasts, I had a double mastectomy followed by a battery of chemotherapy and radiation. Needless to say, I lost my hair along with my breasts, lost tremendous amount of weight and felt sick most of the time.

All seemed clear for a brief interlude of three years. My life had changed irrevocably and my days were perpetually dotted with Tamoxifen and a whole cocktail of other drugs. I could have lived with that, if that is what it would have taken, but just a few weeks after my thirty-fifth birthday, I started coughing continuously and suffered from shortness of breath.

With my previous experience, I did not waste time to consult a doctor. My lungs were now affected, the cancer had metastasized.
“How long”? I asked the doctor.
As gently as he could, he told me, months, a year, who knows? Just try and put your house in order.

We fought some more but time was running out. The medical approach was now palliative. I often wondered, if early detection would have saved my life? Statistically, it has been proven that the mortality rate can be reduced through early screening and detection.

I thought of my two boys and cried out my heart that I would not live to see them grow. I wept for dreams that would never have the opportunity to materialize. I tried to make peace with myself and my World. I stopped castigating myself for procrastinating when I found the first little bump. I started soaking up as much memories as I could take in (on the days that I felt strong enough), searching for laughter with new intent and purpose and I began to experience a peace of mind that I could not explain.
Documenting all my thoughts, writing little letters to my boys and my husband, I wrote each one to mark the milestones in their lives and then, I planned my own funeral.

I was laid to rest peacefully, transitioning from a familiar World to one that I could only imagine. Fortunately, I am free from cancer, free from its debilitating pain and mind boggling cost. At long last, I get to be a singing soprano in the heavenly choirs.

Nota bene: Many of us have probably lost a family member or a dear friend to cancer. We may even know someone currently battling with this difficult challenge. Let us keep praying that an absolute cure will be found for this scourge that is decimating mankind. Let us uphold those who journey through this affliction, that they receive extraordinary grace to fight and slay this giant.