[STORY] TRAPPED IN THE MIDDLE (Final Episode 14)

Episode 14 (Last Episode).

“Mama, not again. Can you please stop crying?”

“You want me to stop crying, ehn? How can I stop crying, Greg? How can I stop crying when my son have suddenly subjected me to playing second fiddle to a total stranger?”

“Tricia is not a stranger Mama and nobody said anything about having you play second fiddle to anyone. Where in heaven’s name are you even getting all of these from?.

Mama broke down again, crying.
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I moved closer to Mama, I held her in a hug, then tried wiping her tears with the only item I found lying on the stool right beside me, “a serviette”.

“Mama, can you please stop doing this to me? You know how much I hate it when you cry, especially over things I think meager”.

Mama shrugged me off, leaned away, took a sniff, then proceeded to wipe off tears from her face with the back of her palm, before she said…

“You say you don’t like it when I cry but you always find a way to make me…”

“…I am sorry Mama. You have to understand that I’ll never intentionally do anything to make you sad, moreso, cry….”

“…It’s not true” Mama retorted.

I sat there next to Mama, confused, unsure of what exactly this whole drama was really about.

“Is there more to this, than I am aware of?” I thought to myself.

I then thought to ask.

I proceeded to ask.

I felt the need to ask, to at least know what Mama truly wanted from me. Besides, I was already getting frustrated by her “drama”.
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Mama cleared her throat on hearing my question, She rearranged her sitting position to ensure that she was now very well positioned, facing me, before she opened her mouth for the soul piercing, hair raising, eye popping words that soon followed…

“Since you got married to Tricia, I haven’t been getting adequate attention from you, Greg. I’ve apparently become a ghost to you. At first, I tried to understand the fact that as newly weds, it was only normal for you to crave and desire that much needed bonding time with your partner, so I didn’t make so much out of it when in the first six months of your wedding, you barely called to really ask how I was, or even thought it nice enough to have came over to check up on me, knowing very well how sickly I’ve become. My real concern began in the months, leading up to the years that followed. You are my son Greg, so I should know when you are suddenly picking up on a trait I haven’t known you for all your life, yeah?” Mama asked in a manner I’d assumed rhetorical.

It had taken Mama’s momentary silence and glances, to have had me realizing that this was actually a question afterall.

I simply nodded.

Mama continued…

“…I perfectly understand that you are now married and as such, need to concentrate on the family you are trying to build with your wife but Greg, should that automatically translate to forgetting about the family that’d led you into the world?

I was more than speechless. If that was another question, I definitely had no answer for Mama.

But Mama continued anyways…

“…I know that I might sometime cut across as selfish and overly needy, but try and have your best friend in a child grow, and seemingly outgrow his/her relationship with you and you’ll see. Maybe then, just maybe, you might be able to understand what I’ve supposedly been spouting about. Everytime I’ve missed you so much and I’ve asked to come over, to at least spend some time with you, you always have a reason why that is a terrible idea. You’ve never not liked my company before, so I could only imagine what your wife have been feeding you with”.
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I felt the pain in every word Mama spoke. I felt the sincerity in her intent for haven overly been as dramatic as she’d been, the whole time.
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Here I’ve been, thinking that Mama was the problem all along, not knowing that I’d had my part to play in it too.

Mama was not entirely wrong.

I admit, I’d somehow been very distant (emotionally) ever since I got married.

Too distant. But I promise, it was never intentional.

What I thought I was doing was give Tricia all the attention she needed as my newly wed. I didn’t want to cut across as a “Mama’s boy”.

Even though Tricia have never once complained every time Mama had came up with strange requests that needed my attention at ungodly hours, I knew deep down in my heart that Tricia had only been trying her best to be reasonable, to be understanding and respectful. I knew she had only been condoning Mama’s excesses because of the position she knows my mother holds in my heart, in my life.

But because I knew Tricia understood, wasn’t enough reason to have abused the privilege, hence my attempts that’d ultimately seemed negligence on my part, for Mama.
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Being married shouldn’t be a reason to seemingly sidelined a loved one.
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Assuming that the periodic money I sent to Mama would makeup for my absence, was just the height of my insensitivity.
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I now understood.

I now realize why Mama had assumed that Tricia was to be blamed for the sudden distance between us.
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I’d never been more sorry in my life.

I was remorseful because I knew for a fact that I hadn’t been a good son.

Mama deserved better.

I didn’t know that an act I thought “less about” could have had such a huge effect on Mama.
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At this point, Mama had continued crying again.

It took every restrain in me not to have joined her.

I kept apologizing. Over and over again.

I asked for forgiveness.
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Amidst tears, Mama said…

“I am not an idiot Greg. I’ve had my shot at marriage, it’s your time now and I’ll never be a cause for your unhappiness in it. I would never be that kind of a mother, who wouldn’t give her son’s wife, room to breathe. I am just a sad, lonely mother, Greg. You know you are all I’ve got…”

I drew closer to Mama, I held her back in a hug and this time, she let me.
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We went long into the night talking, making up.
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I was glad Mama and I had that talk, that night.
That talk went a long way to ultimately making me a better son, a better husband and even a better role model for my daughters.
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Mama died two years ago and till date, I still mourn her.

We all still do.
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I’d thought I was TRAPPED IN THE MIDDLE the entire time but the truth is, I wasn’t (in the context I’d earlier assumed).

I was TRAPPED quite alright, but in the EUPHORIA of MARRIAGE.
– The End.