Chapter 3 Reality

The next thing I realized was it was morning already and I thought I had a bad dream about mama but reality dawn on me that mama was actually no more and it wasn't a bad dream but reality and I had to face the hard truth. I went to check up on papa and I saw how shattered he was , I assured him everything is going to be fine and we are in this together. Soon people came to the house to give their condolences to papa. News spread like wild fire in the neighborhood, mama died yesternight and now the news is all over.

We had to make plans and bury mama quickly because we had little to spend on fancy funeral . We scheduled her funeral and burial for the next week so that we could inform the other relatives of mama. So the day for us to say goodbye to mama finally came. All dressed up in a black gown, we had to finally come to face the fact that we had to say goodbye. The funeral went on smoothly and soon we were at the cemetery, we buried mama and nothing could stop the tears flowing down my cheeks and though relatives tried to calm me down but this wasn't something I could control , it really hurt to see a love one die. After everything was eventually over, people started dispersing from the funeral ground . There wasn't a site of my brother and it broke my heart that he knew nothing about what has happened .

Camila and Oliver escorted me home afterwards since papa had to stay behind to see what the family had to tell him. I said thank you to Camila and Oliver and soon they were on their way home. I went straight to mama's room to finally cry for the last time . I really had to be strong for papa and I had a lot of things ahead of me. I started packing mama's clothes and I took the ones that give me some memories of her and i also packed her photographs into one box and soon I was done . I went to take a shower and I slept knowing that I had a day to rest before I resume school. Papa returned home quite late and he was very drunk that was quite unusual of him and I had to bear with him that he needed the alcohol to relieve him of some stress.

Monday, school has already resumed and I had to get to school early but I didn't expect Oliver to come and pick me so early to go to school but he insisted that today being the first day of resuming back to school after this incident he had to make sure I will be feeling fine so I agreed and so we went in his car. Everyone in the school was so pleased to see me and all the teachers were sharing their condolences. I was happy to be back in school and the least person I wasn't ready to see was Melvin. Lo and behold talk of the devil and here he comes . I was surprised when Melvin walked slowly to me and told me he was sorry about what had happened to my mum . He really felt sincere about it . I told him that it was fine and I'm okay now. While In class I couldn't focus on anything else than the fact that my mum is no more and it really hurt. Preparation towards the external exams was being made and I still had to make my dreams come to pass and make mama proud where ever she is but on another hand I was wondering if my brother heard the news about mama's demise. I was lost in my thought and I didn't even realize a question was being thrown at me by the biology teacher. I heard my name again and this time round I was back to my senses I asked the teacher if he could repeat the question and he told me that he knows it's not easy to loose a love one but life goes on and there are dreams to achieve so I have to focus on those dreams . And it was true and I had to start to be serious now, soon the bell rang for school to close and I thought it was too quick for that because I didn't get a glimpse of what happened in school today because of how lost I was in my thought .

Camila came to me and asked if she could walk me home and I told her that's fine . So I got my things ready and we started to saunter our way home.I got home quite early than the usual and took my bath and prepared to study a little while waiting for papa to return, I still wasn't in the mood to be having people come visit and bring in their condolences so I ignored the knocks on the door and tried to be as quiet as I could be. After learning, I took in some rice which was leftover from the previous night and ate it with some stew and since it was getting late I had to be getting ready for bed after noticing that papa will be a little late today. so after eating I warmed papa's food and covered it, after, I washed my dishes and locked the door and went straight to bed .