There’s two things I’ve always wanted to say out loud to my mother. The first is “I love you,” and the second is “Merry Christmas.” It’s weird right? These should be very normal things for anyone to say to the woman who gave them life. It’s not that straightforward for me though, my relationship with my mother has never been a normal one, and I don’t think it ever will be. Let me tell you why.

My name is Tireni Ebodaghe, and my father died on the day I was born. I look a lot like him, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that. I could tell from all the pictures I’d seen of him that I was basically a clone of this person who was supposed to be my father, but whom I never got the chance to meet. I have his eyes, his nose, his smile, his whole face really. I look just like my father.

I think that’s why my mother hates me. No, I know that’s why she hates me. She looks at me and I can see the longing in her eyes for the husband she loved dearly, and lost cruelly on the day I came into this world. He was her everything, her whole world, and he was taken away from her, shot by rogue policemen and left to die on the side of the road. I look too much like the source of her pain, and she can’t stand it, she can’t stand me.

I don’t hate my mother though. On the contrary, I actually love her very much. Perhaps it’s a strange response to being treated so coldly, but I figured out very early on in my life that my mother wasn’t ignoring me because she regretted having me. I started to pity her, she had me, and yet she was so alone. If anything, my being born only made her loneliness worse. 

I want to fix that. I know I should be more annoyed at her for basically abandoning me all these years with grandma, nannies, and caretakers, barely sparing me a glance unless it’s a cursory one, and only getting involved with my life when she absolutely has to, but I’m not. I want to make my mother happy again, I know I can never replace my father, but I want to make my mother smile the way I’ve only ever seen in pictures from before I was born. 

The biggest I’ve ever seen her smile was in a photograph where her and my father had on Christmas hats and matching pajamas. They looked so happy, and she looked so beautiful. I was in awe of how beautiful she looked when grandma first showed me that picture. It still is my favorite picture, and it was the reason why I asked my mom why we never celebrate Christmas once when I was seven years old. 

My mother froze when I mentioned Christmas, her usually emotionless eyes trained on me with an accusatory gaze. “How could you? Why would you ask me that? Why would you do this to me?” Her eyes carried all the questions she couldn’t bring her lips to mutter out loud. She walked out of the room, and it was then that grandma explained to me that Christmas was my father’s favorite time of year. Everything about Christmas reminds my mother of my father, and what used to be the happiest season of her life had now become the most depressing.

I finally understood why we never celebrated, and I never brought it up again. Grandma died a few years after that incident, and mommy was the only family I had left. She didn’t cry at the funeral, she never cried, her eyes were always emotionless, and hollow, as if she had shed all the tears she would ever need to for a lifetime and was incapable of shedding another one ever again. 

………

Work saved my life. Fifteen years ago I lost Otto, my reason to live, my joy, and the best thing to ever happen to me. He died and I never even got to say a proper goodbye. The last time I ever saw him, I was cussing him out for putting a baby in me, a baby I was ready to love with all my heart, and raise with him. We were supposed to do it together, the two of us, but he was taken away from me. 

I still remember exactly where I was, and how I felt when I heard the news. It was my mother that told me. She had wisely taken Tireni away from me before letting me know that my whole life as I knew it was over. “Toni, Otto is dead”. Those four words rocked me to my core. I fell to my knees and let out a guttural scream that was probably inhumane. It startled my newborn daughter, and she began to cry. She wasn’t going to outdo me though, because my tears had already started falling. 

I wept. I wept for Otto. I wept for our daughter who would never get to meet the wonderful man that sired her. I wept for myself because I knew I would never be able to feel anything the same way  again. I wept for the world, because it had just lost one of the most pure-hearted, wonderful people in it. I wept until I had no more tears to shed, and then I wept some more. I never cried again after that day.

“It should have been me,” “How am I supposed to go on?” “I should just go join him.” My thoughts spiraled out of control, and I wanted nothing more than to end it all and not feel anything anymore ever again. I couldn’t function for weeks. My mother had to take care of my newborn because I could barely get out of bed, let alone take care of a baby. 

Work saved me. I threw myself into my job, it was the only solace I could find. Being constantly busy helped distract from all the pain I felt whenever I settled down and remembered all I’d lost. I went to work early, and left very late, every day, sometimes even on weekends and holidays. It was my escape, my salvation, so much so that I neglected my family, and my only daughter in the process.

I’ve always felt extremely guilty for basically abandoning her, but as the years passed and she grew, Tireni began to look more and more like Otto. I couldn’t bear to look at her, it was too painful, so I left her in the hands of my mother, and whichever competent caretaker I could find at any given moment. I did the bare minimum. I made sure she was clothed, fed, and lacked for nothing, but I was never present, I couldn’t afford to be, it was too much for me, and there was work to be done anyway, much like today. 

It’s the 25^th of December, and I’m working late again. I look up and check the time on the small digital clock placed on my desk next to a smiling picture of Tireni. “8:17pm, I should leave soon” I muttered to myself as I started rounding up the report I was working on. I would finish the rest of the work at home, as I always did. I gathered up all my belongings and made my way down to the office car park. Victoria island can be difficult to navigate, especially at night, but I insisted on driving myself, I wouldn’t be leaving my life in the hands of someone else, never again. 

I get in my car and start making my way home, everything is going well, until it isn’t. I’m driving at a reasonable pace and I soon hit the expressway. The roads are free now, so I pick up the pace, going faster and faster. The adrenaline also helps me forget, it has to, letting my mind settle is a recipe for disaster. I see a bend ahead and try to turn my steering wheel, but it won’t move. It’s stuck, and I’m headed straight into the railing at a 100km/h. 

“No no no MOVE MOVE MOVE” I start panicking and yelling at the wheel, as if that’s going to save me. This is probably the end for me, and some part of me is happy that this is happening. “Maybe I can finally be at peace with Otto” I thought to myself, and so I closed my eyes, ready to meet my end, and as soon as I shut them the vivid image of my orphaned daughter crying, all alone in the world. 

“I can’t abandon her.” The words filtered into my mind, ironic as they were, seeing as I had basically done that throughout her life, but in that moment I realized that I was all she had, just like Otto was all I had, and if I left her alone in this cruel cold world, she would probably become just like me. Alone, empty, and dead inside. I refuse to let that happen. “Brakes, you idiot cars have brakes” I yell to myself and slam down on the brakes as hard as possible. The tires skid, and the car starts to decelerate. I slam into the railing, but not with nearly enough force to kill me, just enough to warrant a trip to the mechanic. 

I’m alive. 

My daughter is waiting for me, I need to get home. I get out of the car, lock it with most of my belongings in it, and quickly flag down a bus. “I hope nothing happens to it, I’ll come back for it, I need to get home.” There was a newfound conviction I had to see my daughter, one that was years too late, but it was there nonetheless. “I’m going home to see my daughter.”

………

I woke up to the sound of my mother screaming my name. That was highly unusual. I checked my phone and it was 10:36pm, this was around the time she usually gets back, so I assumed nothing was out of the ordinary, I was wrong. “TIRENI! TIRENI!” I could hear her yelling as she made her way up the stairs. The door to my room slams opens and I see her standing there wide-eyed, sweat streaming down her face, with a small cut above her left eye. 

“Mommy what’s wrong?” I try to ask, but before I can get the words out I’m enveloped in her embrace, and she’s rambling apologies at me incessantly. “I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’ll never leave you alone again I promise I’m so sorry for everything.” She keeps apologizing and it feels like a dream, I can’t believe what I’m hearing, what I’m feeling. “What happened to her?” “Is she okay?” I think to myself before realizing I have to actually voice my thoughts if I want answers.

So I try again, this time audibly. “Mommy, are you okay? What happened?” I asked.  “I’m okay Tireni, I had an accident, but I’m okay, it just made me realize how important you are to me, and how I can’t afford to not be here for you, and present in your life anymore.” “I know an apology won’t suddenly make it all better, and I know I’ve been a terrible mother, but please, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I promise I’ll be here for you going forward, every step of the way.” She says, and I can’t believe my ears. 

I start crying, and I muster up the courage to ask one more question. “Mommy, can I tell you something?” “Go ahead my dear, I’m all ears” she responds, and so, I finally say the words I’ve always wanted to say to her, all these years.

“I love you mommy, oh, and merry Christmas” I laugh as I say the latter part, and for the first time in fifteen years, I see my mother break down in tears.