Unresolved Hurts And Conflicts Came Out During Their Mother’s Funeral. It Threatened To Destroy Their Family Unity

It had been a month since the passing of their mother. Wanja, Alice, Robert, and Nelly all gathered in the living room. Their mother’s funeral portrait was still on the dining table. It felt like she was staring at them, waiting to see what they were going to do. At least they could all agree on that one thing. They seemed to have different ideas about who their mother was, which made it difficult to decide on the next steps.

Wanja was the firstborn. Their mother had her when she was about to complete her university studies. Her father was their mother’s greatest heartbreak. They all knew because she’d said it. Wanja had heard that story more times than she cared to remember. It had also been the source of so much pain for her.

“You’re a disappointment just like your father,” her mother had told her many times. It could have been when she didn’t perform as her mother expected, or when she didn’t follow her rules. She’d also been told that she’d almost ruined her life, but that changed when she got married to the father of her siblings.

The man had been a saint and never once made her feel like she was less his child than the others. His love didn’t shield her from her mother. As soon as Alice was born, she took on the role of deputy parent. It was a role she failed terribly at because she was still a child herself, barely eight years old.

Alice joined Wanja in disappointing their mother. She’d wanted a son but instead got another daughter. Someone had advised her that it would cement her position with her husband and his family. For this reason, Alice tried to do everything she could to help her mother realize that she, too, was worthy. No mountain was too high for Alice when it came to pleasing her mother.

Two years after Alice’s birth, Robert was born. He was the apple of her eye. Robert acted like he was owed royal treatment because he was raised like a king. He was their mother’s boy. He was born to be served by his sisters and mother. “He’s just being a boy,” she often told them when they complained about his laziness in the house. He was a smart boy in school, which only endeared him even more to his mother.

He would have been unkind to his sisters, but he quickly realized that having older, beautiful sisters made him popular with older guys. It gave him access to more favours socially. His father also helped keep him in line as much as he could. His sisters also taught him a lot, which grounded him.

Then came Nelly. She was born a year before their father died. Nelly found a sad, mellow mother. She grew up protective of her mother. Wanja and Alice had gone away to school, so she didn’t have a strong bond with them. Everything she knew about them came from either their mother or Robert.

When Wanja went to university, she knew she had to complete school without a child, and she also had to find a job that kept her away from home. She fulfilled her goals. She poured herself into everything she could so that she’d feel justified about not going home often. They hardly had much to talk about with her mother, either, so phone calls were rare.

Alice never gave up on winning her mother’s acceptance. She overstretched herself by taking on too many chores at home and overextending herself financially. As a result, she resented her siblings. They thought she just enjoyed doing everything. It had always been that way, so they pegged it to her personality.

Robert, the loved one, became the family’s Kofi Annan, especially in the absence of their father; he tried to emulate him. He was the mediator between their mother and his sisters. He also tried to show Nelly another side of their sisters when she said things that she could only have gotten from their mother’s complaints about the elder daughters.

Then their mother died unexpectedly. It hit them all hard. They listened to speaker after speaker during the funeral arrangements and the burial itself, talking about their mother and their loss. They said things about their mother that made them sound like they were talking about a stranger, at least for some of them.

Nelly wrote their collective obituary. She talked about their inside jokes and the things she had taught them. Wanja finally concluded that she’d been born a little too early to meet that version of her mother. Alice didn’t quite win her mother’s approval. Then she wondered what she was to do next. Robert realized he carried guilt about the love he had received that hadn’t been shown to his older siblings. Nelly was lost.

The siblings sat in that living room, wondering what would come next because Nelly had two more years of high school. None of the older ones lived at home. Their mother’s business needed managing, too.

“What would mum have wanted us to do?” Alice asked.

They didn’t have a unanimous answer.  They argued and said hurtful things to each other. Some stormed out of the room, then came back.

“She’d be yelling about all this bickering,” Nelly said.

They all laughed. It was the first thing they’d agreed on. It was a first step as they tried to find a way to work as a unit. They only had each other now.

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