Twins In The Mind of A Barren Woman

For the past two years of my stay in this new rented space, it was only the last seven months that I heard the land ladies crashing each other, even more than stones in an inferno.

I have a zero tolerance for bumping into people’s arguments. So, as my landlady saw me (I had gone to buy groceries from their shop when I chanced upon them in the hot pursuit), she wanted to narrate the issue to me, but I pretended to be on a phone call. That was a good pretense: I didn’t want to have anything to do with what they were doing to themselves.

Sisterly fight, I have come to know that it isn’t demonic at all. I used to fight my senior brother. And I was beaten well-well. As humans as we are, there are times disagreement would break. And by that, petty grudges are often settled.

But theirs was an eyesore; I hated what I saw. They were hurling foul words at each other. And that of my land lady wasn’t generous — her choice of words could be described as virulent, repugnant, and denigrating to womanhood. I wept. My soul convulsed. I just don’t see the need for a woman to insult her sister with scores of infertility crisis. And even had the audacity to shame her bloated stomach. That she (her sister) use it (bloated stomach) to deceive people, as though she’s pregnant, when she’s actually suffering from fibroid. I wept. My soul convulsed.

Had it not been those dirty phrases, I wouldn’t have thought my landlady’s sister wasn’t really pregnant. This woman (my landlady’s sister) is very affable, empathetic, loving, and humanitarian. She has this cheerful face which brightens than the moon; everyone speaks about it, unlike her sister’s (my landlady) known nerdy facial expression. She doesn’t stay with us too; she only comes and goes. But her sister resides in the neighborhood, and have a shop just in front of their house where we have rented.

I was raised by a barren woman, my late aunt. She is a woman I can bet with my kidneys that she was our mother and father. My mother was then in a faraway country due to work. My father was rather in proximity; only a road was between his place of residence and my maternal family house.

This woman (my late aunt) gave us the world. Her teachings and motherly and fatherly love were indescribably beautiful. I called her my mom, even after knowing that my biological mother had travelled, as a kid. She shared all her secrets with me. She’s the only woman I could hold, kiss on the cheek and say I love her. And would deliberately worry her just by saying I want to get married, during the days she knew very well that we were struggling to keep heads above water.

After her death, I have always held an opinion that she’s my biological mother, until I heard the saying of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) that anybody raised by an aunt, it’s as though raised by the biological mother. They both have the same status in Islam. Case closed.

So now the issue was how to break the news to the barren woman, my landlady’s sister, with all these facts at my disposal. I know barren women; they are altruistic towards children, not because they don’t have theirs; they just love humanity. And I know also that when the news of child birth reaches them they might reflect about their infertility the more.

Humanely speaking, I wouldn’t want to put her under that cold shade. Even though I had a good news to disclose, it has intuitively become a bombshell. The question: ‘how do I say to her (my landlady’s sister) that God has blessed us with twins?’ She knew my wife’s stomach had taken a football shape for some months now.

The day that we were discharged from the hospital, we came home in a rather disguised way. We did everything (packing to make another journey as soon as possible) perfectly. She saw us but I would want to believe that she could be thinking we were now going to the hospital, mirroring labour, when actually a successful delivery, blessedly been had already.

I returned home late at night after the journey, so it was the subsequent days that she got to be seeing me. She would be surprise, I guess, for it has past three days and she hadn’t seen my wife. My facial expression doesn’t show that all his going on well or bad, I was keeping a frugal tempo, with the good news. Therefore, anytime she saw me she’d be looking at me with a more cheerful face. I know she was waiting for the news. And I was also pampering the good news; I just don’t want to put her to wild reflections.

My late aunt, at her days of old, there were times she would be very, very aggrieved and shed thunderous tears, thinking about why God made her “Kene” (infertile). This is why I was being careful with relating the news to my landlady’s sister.

I would recall when my mother came back from her journey, my step mother, also a barren woman, whom I had simultaneously lived with for decades now. We do have our fights when possible but the respect and whatnot always soared. Only two days that she had not seen me at her shop, she went sobbing aloud.

Well, that was so unusual of me. I’d always be at her shop and be having chats with her at night. At last, when she eventually saw me, she sorrowfully said, “is it because your mom has come so you don’t know me again?” I didn’t say much; I ideally didn’t have much to say either. To keep her hopes high, I came up with a story that I travelled with my hockey team and we just came back tonight. It was a lie, though.

My step mother had had me all this while, but why would did start feeling emptiness when she heard the news of my mother’s homecoming? It’s not easy for women without children of their own. Now you’ve seen the reason I wasn’t prepared to put my landlady’s sister into that emotional distraught, a good bad jealousy?

So growing up I hated and, still hate anyone who mocks an infertile woman with infertility. If one does that, no matter our relationship, I’d show one my other self. Even if going exasperating and fiendish, I’d not care. Thank God, those in my bracket are level-headed.

Last week Wednesday I was at my landlady sister’s shop to buy five kilos bag of rice. I greeted her as normal. I realized she was peeking at me with beams of smile. That was when I thought of telling her, but my prayers were that she’d not feel hurt like my step mom or aunt.

“… and madam, please, my wife has put to birth o.” “Oh! Wow!” She started grinning and smiling. She went inside to bring the bag of rice I was buying but forgot herself and came back with empty hands. “What did she get?” now asking about the gender. Perhaps she was expecting a girl, as most women prefer.

“Girls,” I said. “You mean…twins. Twins?” “Yes, two girls.” This was when she lost control of herself, “Oh…wow! Wow! Lord is Great! Good news. What a joyous news. You’ve made my day. Lord.” She

She did repeat these joyous phrases and throwing herself up and down, in merriment, so much that I started feeling uneasy. She was extremely ecstatic — that she opened her arms — to give me a warm hug because of the news I had brought. When she was coming for the hug, she noticed I was falling behind. I think that was when she came back to herself.

And sadly, I realized my landlady’s sister (still at the shop) was feeling a bit dull. Truly, I didn’t know how I saw my way back into the house, and to my room. I left but I kept asking myself: “though I had brought good news it’s looking more of a bad news. And thus tonight, I pray she’d not be questioning God, saying: ‘Lord, why not me?’”

This incident has put to some serious reflections off late. I know very well that it’s God who gives and takes. And it’s Him who has also said that “with prayers, one’s destiny could be changed.”

In hindsight, this blessed month of Ramadan, relying on God’s promise — that a fasting person’s prayers wouldn’t be rejected — I have given all infertile women a slot in my prayer schedule. That God would grant them and us, all that we so desire.

NB: I’d never doubt the miracles of documentary, though I did not have the privilege of reading from books (only oral tradition I had) what led to my coming into the world. As a writer and father, the best gift I feel I’d need to present to my lovely girls when they come of age, by God’s grace, would be some pertinent scenes heralding their advent into the word.

This episode should actually be the last. But as these passages would not be following any sequence, thereby I felt the need to start with this, and later follow with the others.

Abdul Rahman Odoi

[TwinsWeb I]