My Changing World Pt. 2

As the house became too hot for my mother and I, I packed my bags and went to the US for a few months. America is my home. It has been my home since I was 17. I felt very comfortable, welcome, at peace, and free.  I would travel there multiple times in a year just to have some peace. I was sorely in need of some of that peace. 

My mother had recently learned I am lesbian, news she was very uncomfortable with. But none of us knew just how uncomfortable she really was. After I returned from America, she dismissed it at first, saying it was a phase, and urging me to pray and keep hoping that God would work a miracle and change me to being straight – after all, I was once “straight”. But the truth is that I was never heterosexual.  I only pretended to be so that I can fit in and please her, my family, and society. This desire to fit in led to so many risky behaviours because I was not having satisfying romantic relationships with men as I had with women. I thought it was the guys and I told myself that one day I would find that one guy who would sweep me off my feet, proving to me that my theory was right. But it wasn’t them. It was me. It had always been me.

The next few months were intense as I changed even more. My mother suddenly became worried that this lesbian thing had come to stay. Even my dressing made her worry. It made her uncomfortable, even though I had dressed like that all my life, but I guess she began to see it in a new light because she became aware of my sexuality. The reality began to sink in. She became desperate. Her early morning visits to my room became more frequent and more uncomfortable. Our relationship was strained and getting worse by the day. It was so obvious. I could not hold a normal conversation with her because I feared she would say something hurtful. I just avoided her even though we lived in the same house.

Apparently, she visited a spiritual soothsayer who informed her that my family – me, in particular – was under spiritual attack. I found this rather odd as Christians are brought up to shun that kind of thing because the Bible said they were diabolic and from the 'Evil one'. One evening, she called me into her living room and said the family was going to engage in two weeks of fasting and prayer. She asked for my participation and I declined because I felt this was a move of desperation targeted at me. 

The two weeks fasting and prayer was aimed at casting the demons she believed had taken possession of me. She showed me a concoction the spiritual soothsayer gave her for our consumption to aid the complete removal of the spiritual demons whose control we were under. Although I refused to participate in the fast, I participated in the prayers we held twice a day, morning and evening. In the first session that evening, she brought the concoction in a twenty litre jerry can. It looked like dirty water mixed with palm oil and other things. I could already imagine what it would taste like. Then she brought another mixture in a different container. This one was palm oil and something else, and we had to rub it on our foreheads for protection from these demons. After prayers, she went round offering this concoction in a little glass. Everyone took their portion obediently. When it was my turn, I refused. How could I drink something that looked so nasty? I had no idea what was inside, and I was not ready to just drink it. My mother insisted. After taking his own share, my father intervened, pleading with me to take it for peace sake. I refused. My mother was furious. 

I refused for various reasons, but at the top of the list was the fact that I felt I was being unduly targeted. My mother really believed I was under a spiritual attack and getting the whole family to participate in this was her way of disguising the fact that it was really about me, hence, her fury at my refusal to drink it. She threatened to get physical and attempted to force the liquid down my throat. At this point, I just walked out of the living room. I locked myself in my room and pondered why my mother was so willing to get physical with me to drink this thing. 

The next morning, my mother came to my room. I sat on the chair and she sat on the bed. She told me that I was a complete disgrace to the family. She said my selfishness knew no bounds. My mother told me that my decision to leave the marriage gave her high blood pressure, and as if that were not enough, I now say I am a lesbian. She was not going to let me kill her for her other three children, whom she had to stay alive for. I started crying as I could not hold the tears any longer. She said that since I had decided to live such a shameful life, I was not going to do it under her roof. She asked me to leave the house by the time she returned from her outing. Then she got up, looked at me as I was visibly crying at this point, and just walked out, slamming the door behind her. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I called my dad to confirm if he was in on this plan and to my surprise, he was not. He told me to lock my door, and not to leave the house, adding that if I left, I should know that would signify the end of my relationship with him. I just sat in my room crying. Not too long after, my mother returned trying to force her way into my room. She began banging on the door, threatening to ask the guards to break down the door. I do not remember a time before then when I was as afraid as I was that day. 

I did not leave the house that day, but it was an experience that opened my eyes to the reality that my mother - and my family- is very homophobic. It revealed the deep seated fear of homosexuals right under my nose, and even though I had expected it, I did not realise it was going to be this bad. It dawned on me that it is possible to be religious and still have hate in your heart. I guess this is what Jesus meant when he said “not everyone who calls me Master will enter into my kingdom”. I was very affected by my mother’s behaviour. I could not believe the woman I looked up to, and loved so much would treat me in such a manner. I can take harsh words from a stranger, but from my mother? Could she not see that my sexuality did not change anything? Did she ever stop to consider that I could still be her fun-loving, ever vibrant daughter who made everyone laugh? The contradictions between the teachings of love in the Christian faith and my mother’s behaviour could not have been starker. 

Perhaps, my mother acted out of desperation; perhaps, out of ignorance. Maybe even out of love.  Maybe she truly believed she was doing what every mother would do to protect her children. I do not really know for sure and I am not sure I will ever know what drove her actions. But what I do know is that the day she asked me to leave the house was the day she lost a daughter, and I, lost a mother.