Creative Journal

My mother drags another chair next to us. “Sit here, and we’ll talk.” She
speaks to thin air as she talks.
“Mother, are you.. perhaps.. speaking to Daddy?” I ask hesitantly.
She nods her head, faintly thinking that I understand.
“Your father died while trying to save me, and you.” She speaks as if she is
about to lose her voice. “It was a time when the White Tigers were fighting
with the Bulldogs. They were the names of the rebel groups,” she continues.
“We planned to escape that night because we did not want the group
leader to know that I was pregnant. We would have all died if he had
known. He knew anyway. He hunted assassins to hunt us down. Your father
was shot during that assassination, and I fled to a faraway town by a canoe
alone.” My mother finishes talking, and my eyes and face are filled with
tears already.
“So, are you saying that you are seeing my dead father right now?” I ask.
“Yes. I started seeing dead people when the rebel leader asked me to drink
the spiritual dew from the Amani tree,” she says.
“So, this is what war is,” I say to myself.
War has caused me to lose my father, caused my mother to be a runaway
rebel, and led her to become delusional. This will cause me to feel sorry for
her for my whole life.
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