Hope, fear, then despair

Hope, fear, then despair!

This was the circle I ran into shortly after making a post about turning “sweet sixteen” on social media.

Source

I was just returning from school, hoping to steal some time to quickly see a Philippine series but when I got to my door, I saw a typed note placed just beside it. I thought it was general information regarding the compound but when I moved up close, the first words my eyes could catch were “.... vacate the premises on or before the 16th of August….”

I mentally counted the days we had left; it was barely two weeks. Was there a mistake? Where would we go?

I decided to wait till my mom returned before taking down the letter. Someone was either playing pranks on us, or the landlord was mistaken. My mom worked so hard to provide everything we needed. She had never failed to settle any of our bills, how could it be that she hadn't paid the rent?

She arrived sometime later when I was fast asleep. I was woken up by sniffles and sobs. I raised my head and caught her wiping tears with her wrapper.

“Mummy, are you okay?”

She rose as she cleared her throat loudly, tossed some phlegm into the bathroom sink, and turned the faucet on to splash some water on her face.

“I should be asking you that, how come you're sleeping by this time?” My mom used to refer to me as ‘kerosene’ when I was much younger because I never slept in the afternoon. I was either reading, writing, or seeing a movie.

“I was watching a movie; I don't know when I slept off.”

“Your food is in the kitchen. Make sure you wash those dirty plates off before you sleep. I'm going to bed now.”

I wanted to speak with her concerning the letter outside, but it seemed she had said her final words as she threw a blanket over her head.

I replayed everything in my head again, if there was anything that made my heart break, it was seeing my mom cry. I thought of calling my older siblings but since I didn't own a cell phone yet, I knew my mom would be upset if I used hers.

My mom had left the house by the time I got up in the morning.

The next 7 days continued like that. I would wake up to see a note from her saying she had left for work and leaving a set of instructions for the day. Then she would return late at night, sob a little while I pretended to sleep, and pray almost throughout the rest of the night.

I became restless. Several questions ran through my mind on a marathon. Why was God letting this happen to us? My mom was a devout worker, wasn't her service good enough for God to save us from this impending embarrassment?

It was in this state that I met Lecrae. Not physically though, I stumbled on his book “Unashamed”.

“Yo Treasure, do you have any novel you could exchange for this one?” Betty and I usually exchanged novels since we didn't have money to rent them.

I replied positively, then got it from her. It was the perfect way to take my mind off everything that was going on in my life at the time.

Lecrae's ‘Unashamed’ left me in tears. I too had to pretend to be asleep when my mom got back so that she wouldn't know I had been crying. When I was certain she was asleep, I got her Android phone and searched Lecrae out because I learned he was a gospel rap artist from the story.

The first song I saw was titled “I'll Find You”, a song he did with Tori Kelly.

Lecrae - I'll Find You (Video) ft. Tori Kelly