The Chess Master

When you lose your mother, something in you shifts.  You lose balance. It feels like sleeping on a couch with your legs dangling only to wake up and find your feet have been cut off. Mothers sometimes walk for you when you cannot. Mothers believe in you when the world turns away from you. You can even have nothing, but when you a have mother, you own a small world because mothers are our world. When they are gone, you feel exposed. Like a soldier without a shield. That’s what happened to Pat. When she died, she (Pat) did not cry hysterically, she shed one tear after the other, just one drop rolling down her cheeks, the pain could only be experienced one tear at a time.

Her mother had been ailing for a while. She was a member of a support group. One day, as she preparing to attend one of the meetings, too frail to walk, she asked Pat to take her. She had been out of school for a while. School fees and also the desire to be with her mother. She was officially her care giver. She was not only missing school; she was missing her teenage years. Her mother’s sickness had forced her to grow up. To be the woman of the house, to be her source of strength, to be her mother’s mother.

As her mother was dying, something else was being birthed. If you are a believer, like me, God promises to be a father to the fatherless. Some 15,366 km away, God was setting up something special because she is a super planner. Look at the mountains. Sometimes in the middle of a flat ground, he raises to an elevation to interrupt the flow. To show his power. God interrupts, but He also aligns, and Pat’s stars were aligning.

On this day, for the first time, she took her mother to the support group. Coincidentally, someone was visiting. A gentleman from California. He had been supporting the group for a while. He was here to see the progress. When he saw Pat, his first reaction was, “why isn’t this beautiful girl in school?” When those who were there explained her case, he told her she will never have to worry about it again, he was not only going to pay her fees, but also her up keep. Winter was gone.

God is like a chess master, we are his pawns. He moves us the way he deems fit. Sometimes he doesn’t move us. He makes us wait. Wait for the perfect time. And when our time comes, he makes us queens, then we start making the grand moves. When He says times and chance happens to all men, he means that. It was Pat’s time. The gentleman also offered to build them (her and the mother) a new house. They had been living in this two roomed house with a broken door and a big hole for a window. The sitting room only had the mother’s seat with no cushions. If they needed to chat before they went to bed (which they shared), Pat would sit on an empty Jerry can. Unfortunately, before they could build the house, the mother died. Pat didn’t cry, she shed tears. Watching her, it was hard to imagine what she felt. She was lost in her thoughts and only gave blank stares.

She finally went back to school, this time, to a boarding school. When you have been lost for so long, you only need faith for today and hope for tomorrow. She now had hope. She could now make something out of her life. When we took her to school, she shed tears again. This time, I had no doubt they were tears of joy. She needed fresh start, she needed a lift me up. This was it.

For the first time in her life, she stayed in a stone walled house- with no leaking roof, and a bed to herself. Her grades started improving and so did her esteem. Like any other teenager she could now wear ripped jeans and sneakers, and not the sad grown up dresses that had defined her childhood.

When you are poor, even a beautiful Christmas dress cannot hide it. Poverty has a look. It looks like an old sisal door mat, no matter how many times you clean it, there are some stubborn stains. When the tide changes though, like the scales, the stains starts falling off. Or like a child with chicken pox, the skin starts clearing. You become radiant again. Your poverty look goes away. You can still be wearing the same clothes, but because things are changing for the better, you look different, that different look is called confidence. 

Confidence is like a young plant, if nurtured, it grows, but if it is scathed, it takes a beating, and can take forever to be rebuild. Confidence means you can get into a room without a cologne and people will still notice your presence. You walk with your chin up and shoulders raised. Your steps are assured, even if you trip and fall, yours is never a thud, just a graceful fall. You wake up and dust off like nothing happened.

When we visited her last week. She came out running, to greet her adopted father, the man who God had used to give her another chance. She hugged him. He was overwhelmed, amazed by how much difference one year can make. Amazed by how much the girl had transformed. This time, it was him who shed a tear. Amazed at how God works, how something he considered small was making so much difference in this girl’s life. She was now wearing a smile where uncertainty dwelled before. She never used to smile. And she never used to frown, she just had this indifferent look.

For Christmas when she was asked what she needed, she only said three things. Two for her family (she now lives with the sister) and one for herself.  First, she asked if they could expand their house so that everyone can have a room. Her niece was also in her last year of primary school- a young bright girl with short hair. Ooh, did u tell you that Pat has now grown her hair, and because a woman’s hair is her crown which not even the most beautiful tiara can replace, she now relaxes it. She asked for her niece to be sponsored for high school. Finally, she asked for a Christmas dress. She blushed while saying this. The young girl in her was still alive. All the three wishes were granted. The gentleman said, she had not only adopted Pat, her family was now his family. The niece passed very well. And unlike her aunt, she has an early opportunity to pursue her dreams. Sometimes, your blessings are for everybody.

Next year, she will be in form four. And later in the year, she will have a date with destiny. She will sit for her exams. When we asked her what she wanted to be. She smiled, then went quiet for a few minutes. It was the first time she had been asked this question. She now had a voice. She could make choices. She said a teacher, because teachers are game changers, and that is what she wants to be. She also wants to be a chef, because if she cannot explain herself with her words, she can cook. She loves cooking.

I can imagine her teaching in an international school. The girl who was brought up in a mud house now trotting the corridors of an international school. She now commands respect. A girl who no one thought she could make anything of her life, now being asked by influential people, "Madam, do you think my son will amount to anything?" She will smile because she knows by being in this school is already something. Then she will answer, "Yes sir, he will, but you need to let him know. He needs to hear it from the father. Because it is the duty of the father and mother to speak life into the lives of their children.” The father will shake her hand and say, “I, will.” Then add, ‘your father must be very proud of you.” She will smile and think of her adopted father and say, “you bet he is.” She will then walk away, with her high heels clanking on the floor, and her cologne following after her, and her confidence walking beside her (because it now has a life of its own), she will remove he phone and send her father (who’s now in retirement) an sms, “Thank you dad, for believing in me, and thank you for giving me a chance. Love you. Pat”

I also imagine her as chef, a master chef. I imagine her walking around tables after meals and interacting with the diners. Speaking in crisp English like the waffles she had just served for dessert. I imagine her offering wine as a Christmas gift to diners. Explaining the different types and where they were made. Besides being a chef, she’s now a wine connoisseur. She loves her Rose’. I imagine her flying business class to go pick her award as the chef of the year within their group of hotels. I imagine her standing next to her boss as he signs the visitor’s book. And that image of her is a stark contrast of the girl I saw standing next to her mother when we visited them three weeks before she (her mother) died. And that image reminds me that God-is-real.