Her back has ached for years, carrying the bags she never unpacked filled with regrets and out of touch friends; artsy and interesting friends she could have still had if she had followed one fork in the crossroads and not the other. But she carries her burden with style and grace, and an exquisite, hard-earned handbag held tightly against her body in the crook of her elbow. The high-flying echelons of society, the supposed crème de la crème of Accra never really accepted her; her neighborhood was not on the approved list of addresses where ladies who lunch recline on stiff brocade covered sofas and complain about their house-helps. They hated to admit it, but the aura of independence and self-assuredness that preceded her into a room, tinged their self-conscious laughter with envy. She did not live under the cloud of the constant possibility of one bad business deal crushing an entire empire and snatching away the first-class flights and gold-fringed kaftans.
She brushed of any underhanded attacks on her dignity and her unexpected achievements. When she helped her daughter shed the standard Ghanaian “tea and bread” school uniform for the green and white stripes that were synonymous with wealth and a stamp of the word “privilege” on the forehead, she laughed and agreed when someone said snidely, “This is what you have always wanted”.
Neither did the single mum’s club welcome her with open arms, her laugh was too raspy and raucous, more like a cackle really, she seemed to at ease and content, free from the hard-edged bitterness entrenched by all the pointing fingers “Her husband left her and now no-one is looking for her.” But that suited her fine, she did not wear single motherhood like a blood-stained medal of war on her right breast; she just got on with the business of living, devoured good books and drank good wine, and discussed the joys of singlehood with the few who were just as irreverent as she was in the face of materialistic, vapid women with lukewarm sense of humor.
She sat cloaked in pride and joy through award ceremonies and piano recitals and dance shows and open days every last day of the term, until her smile froze painfully on her face at the thought that her daughter did not share her last name. She had to endure the constant corrections to enthusiastic teachers, “No I’m not Mrs. So-and-so, but she is my daughter”. Maybe you should have given her your name after all, but how would you have faced the accusatory inquiries into your strange situation “Srowo de? Where is your husband? She has brought a baby from Amereecah with no fathah.”
She soothed her back pains with the ointment of success, of a dream fulfilled, for her entire life’s purpose had transformed into making sure she raised a shy little girl into an accomplished young woman. She cooled her forehead with prayer and praise, baring her soul to the Heavenly Father every night like clockwork. She did not even mind when people paid her unintended backhanded compliments: “Ah in fact, you must be a man, no woman can do this by herself.” Yet the dull ache in her back remains, with the neatly packed cases of everyone else’s burdens (she seems so capable in that steely-eyed, pointy-nosed way, so of course one extra bag won’t kill her). Her back has ached for years, but hopefully this time she will learn that she really does deserve to pack light.
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