YOUR MOTHER'S ADVICE IS SOMETIMES BULLSHIT

Oppong Clifford Benjamin writes:

Do you remember the dress your mother wore at your birth? You asked your mother and chuckled and walked away.

The richest person in your family is the long bamboo seat fixed beneath the giant oak tree in the middle of the playground of your village. Its position is almost permanent.

Your mother told you stories about this old chair. She said in the old days before her, warriors and hunters rested on the chair until their sweats evaporated to the leaves on the tree.

You grew up to see palm wine sellers and lazy men play cards, you saw the chair hold history together on its tired bamboo slabs.

It is sunny these days. Even the leaves of the tree no longer grace the long seat with warmth. And your mother tells you different stories of the chair. She now says this chair practised witchcraft. She says God has punished it, God has finally unveiled the cloth covering its wickedness. Your mother warns you not to go close to it. She says so in her loudest voice, claps sometimes and laughs tauntingly.

You are now thinking. You say to yourself, I should know better than my mother. This woman who even described the dress your grandmother wore at her birth with an emphasis on the colours as if she saw it all, this woman is just full of stories. No, you can't trust her.

You looked at the lonely end of a hero and said farewell legend. You gave us all warmth, you gave us shelter, you gave us rest, you gave us life, we are alive because you were. This our village is full of stories, just tales. And I have grown up to know better than these women.