Monday morning found Tendai rested and hungry. It had been a long night
i keep going back and forth...?
fighting the urge to quietly exit her dilemma by joining the world of the undisturbed. The thought of her family and her beautiful gift of life allowed her to throw the contents of the whiskey bottle down the drain, and replace the pain killers in the medicine cabinet to await their intended purpose instead. First thought of the day; Snap out of victim mentality, I was very much a culprit in the formulation of this situation.
Tendai gave thanks for another day, knowing what she was going to do come Tuesday morning but still needing to sift through her thoughts and trace them to her decision. So she showered, treated herself to breakfast at her favourite café down the road and thought.
‘To abort or not to abort, that is the question’. This brought a dry smile to her face. She took a sip of her chai tea, it was good. Okay, so what was making this such a hectic decision? Surely it was cut and dry, all she had to do was the right thing. But according to whom? It’s funny how some people seemed to know what God’s thoughts were on ALL issues of life and took on the authority, not to provide wise counsel based on the word of God available in print, but to judge harshly and make commandments just because it is written… This last thought made her laugh a bit too loudly for someone having breakfast for one. Her eyes quickly swept through the café, phew no one except that waiter that keeps eyeing me seems to have noticed, and he seems to want to laugh with me. Ever since I became a regular, he seems to be fascinated by my tendency to lounge on the corner sofa alone with a book or schoolwork while I indulge in wine, tea or something decadent to eat. He had even ventured as far as to try and describe the type of person I am, never forgetting to write his phone number on my bill every time he served me, seeing as I refused to give him mine. Anyway, what had made me laugh was an article I had read on the internet titled Why can’t I own a Canadian? What had happened was a Jewish lady had been slandering homosexuality, and in final authority had quoted a verse from the book of Leviticus in the bible, so a ‘fan’ had written to her and asked since God says, in Leviticus, that I can own slaves but they must be from a neighbouring country – why can’t I own a Canadian? It went on to touch on a few more subjects, obviously hypothesising that Leviticus is an authority on life issues, and exposing the very gigantic holes in that theory. Mmm is it possible that some people get it wrong about life and dealing with it and they don’t even know it?
Tendai’s thoughts returned back to her present impasse. What factors were making it hard to choose what to do; family, Kundai, her future, the baby’s future. In all of this was God of course, but she knew Him well enough to know that He loved her first and foremost, whatever she did He always reminded her there were consequences. So she broke it down:
Family – obviously what parent or sibling in their right mind would want or advise their daughter or sister to get an abortion. It’s not a nice thing to go through especially if it’s a religious family (I say religious assuming that the same principle applies in Judaism, Islam, Hindu, African traditional religion as in Christianity). On the other hand, until recently, some families have been known to advise against chemotherapy for their family member riddled with the dilemma to remove cancer, suffer now and be rid of it or to keep cancer and see how it goes. Not to say a baby is cancer, it’s just a thought, just a thought. If people heard the things in my head, doompf, she made a shoot myself gesture with her hand. Again she looked around but this time no one was paying attention, not even Mr Waiter who was busy pouring coffee for an elderly couple.
Kundai – For once since she woke up, her stomach turned and she lost appetite. She was done listening to him that’s for sure. She’d figure the rest out later, like if there was even a relationship worth considering. The selfish ‘Mr I want you to get an abortion, I’m not going to help you but I don’t want anyone else to know or else it’ll ruin my integrity’, self centred coward. It was no use talking to him either he would be like, ‘We made the decision together so stop acting like I’m forcing you to do this’. Argh, of all the men in the world I pick this one to be in love with. The saddest thing is after all the other failed relationships; I was hoping to never go through another one. Or is it just me being ‘hormonal’ and what not? Why can’t I just keep quiet, get the abortion, and hope he marries me because right now his word means just about the same as a used tissue paper, disgusting. I’m sorry but how are we as women supposed to respect and submit to men who have no concern for anyone except themselves? Where is the protection? If the head of the house only thinks about the head, how long will the rest of the body last? Survival of the fittest, do or die, all I’m saying is I’m getting out alive. If the head doesn’t function, it means the system doesn’t function, it means the principles don’t apply, it means I’m throwing out that book, rebooting, rewiring, reconditioning, rewriting and Lord help me I’ll grow my own damn head. On the real, imagine how the next guy will react if I tell him I’ve had an abortion, he’ll be out the door faster than I can say, this is what happened. Even if he stays and listens, his heart would have exited having labelled me damaged. Men! They feed their minds with pornography but expect saints as wives. Tell me if you impregnate a girl, she aborts it and you move on to a girl that has never even considered such an atrocity, what do you think happens to the other girl. Oh and what about if she keeps the child and you don’t want it, how many men do you know who will willingly marry a woman with a child? Ever heard of human debris? It piles up and you will be called up on it, so thank God I don’t have to sit and plot how to make Kundai pay for this, it’ll come to him, naturally. I should have the child just to punish him. But hold that thought, it’s so draining to be mad at one person – forget him, I’m done.
Future – If I do not allow God into this very dark space I’m in right now, whatever decision I make, they’ll be no real future for me. Tendai paused here and said a prayer allowing God to witness everything she was thinking and going through and help her make the best of any decision she made if she didn’t pick the right one; she really had to think about herself, no one had so far, including herself. It was all about the baby she was carrying. Am I being selfish? I have one more year to complete my degree on the scholarship and secure a good job so that I can afford to survive. If I have this child, I’ll forfeit the scholarship, move back home and become a burden once again to my mother on top of the others she has. I’ll have to scrap by on piece jobs because I’ll have no qualifications for a real job. No, that can not an option, I wish the reality was different but it isn’t. How do I even support this child? ‘Ameno’, my mother would be saying, ‘why start thinking now nhai mwan’angu? You should have done the thinking before. Close that bible, if it didn’t help you make a wise decision before do you think it can miraculously provide answers for your mistake now? I’ll take care of the baby, oh nhai mwari, these children need more than I know how to give’. Just the thought of mama moistened her eyes, Tendai being conscious not to cry in such a public place shut her eyes for composure, but she could feel the familiar heat starting up in her chest that signalled waterworks at any moment. Mama was such a good woman; no one could ever fault her on not doing the right thing in terms of counsel and support. I’m so embarrassed; I don’t know how I’ll even begin the story. She is so proud of me and my achievements and is really rooting for me to graduate. Lord knows she’d trade in all my success to save the life of my baby.
Tendai had to go to the toilet and let that first wave of tears out before she paid her bill, took a mango smoothie to go and found a nice bed of rocks to sit on and allow the rest of her tears to do what they wanted. A mother’s love would see her through anything, but she felt so guilty, what an imposition. Could she give that sort of love?
Baby’s future – could she allow her child to be born without a father? Let’s not even go into the psychoanalysis of an ‘unwanted’ child. Could she allow her child to experience the harsher side of life because she could not afford anything else? What would the child eat? Or wear? Where would the child sleep, go to school? The world is a cold place, what would it do to my unsuspecting child who would have a bad lot from the get go? Everyone said it would be selfish to get an abortion, wasn’t it more selfish to have the baby so I wouldn’t feel guilty for aborting it? I mean for what will I be bringing this baby into this world for? Am I too open minded? Maybe things are black and white; there are no reasons or variables that justify an abortion. Maybe it was time to face the music. Tomorrow took on a different meaning for her. A fresh flood of tears blurred her vision of the world as she had seen it, things were about to change, she was about to change.
Pickled plum 