I grew up in a family I will describe as comfortable but not wealthy. I mean we never went to bed with empty stomachs, but luxuries were minimal, and sometimes even necessities felt like luxuries.
School, for me, was not all that smooth.
I remember the days when I'd watch my siblings put on their school uniforms. Crisp, clear, sky blue blouse and dark blue pants. The smell of newly ironed cotton fills our small sitting room.
My younger sister would walk around the house softly singing a tune while brushing her hair. My younger brother would polish his sandals, happy to go meet his friends at school. I, on the other hand, felt forgotten because Papa had asked me to wait another school year so he would be able to afford my school fees by then.
I would sit by the window with my chin on my knees, watching them as they jumped into Papa's car and drove out the gate leaving a painful lump in my chest.
I remember one day when I wasn't able to keep the pain in my heart any longer, I glared at my father. He was sitting by the doorway, disturbed, a calculator in his hands as he murmured every second.
"Papa," I had called out to him softly, my voice shaking, "Why can't I go to school too?"
He dropped his calculator on the table, took a deep breath. His face wrinkled like he hated himself for that question. "You will go," he told me softly. "Just not yet."
I wanted to ask why but I held myself and let the two words "not yet" hurt me more. I didn't know what it meant, but at that instant, I felt he didn't love me like the others. Or Papa didn't love me at all.
Weeks became days.
One night as I was in the living room, I heard my parents talking about something from the kitchen. They were arguing. My siblings had all gone to bed. The ceiling fan in the parlour whirred and creaked above me like it was in the argument. I tiptoed to the door, but all of a sudden, my father talked low and steady.
"If I sell the car, he can go back to school," he said.
My mother's voice trembled. "But… that car is everything you have. How are you going to manage to go to work? School runs? Meet with clients? How?"
"I will manage," he said. "My kids' education comes first before a car."
I froze in the hallway, my heart pounding. Just like Mama had asked, I tried to grasp the idea of Papa selling his car. That car was not just a moving metal to him; it was like a partner, a business partner to him.
Each Saturday, I watched as he waxed it so that it shone. For him to sell it to me did not feel like love. It felt more like a sacrifice that I couldn't understand.
It wasn't long, a man showed up at our house in the afternoon on a weekday, just after Papa had driven my younger siblings to school. I watched as the man inspected the car as if he were searching for something. Later, Papa gave him a firm handshake and the man drove off with it, the roar of the engine fading down the dirt road. My father remained outside the gate, his arms folded, his eyes scanning the ground. He didn't utter a word. His silence said something I wasn't old enough to understand.
The next week, I returned to school, but the bitterness never left. That was how I got to realize that education was really costly. I kept asking myself a lot of questions. I beat myself up for the reason Papa sold his beloved car.
But time had a way of answering our question.
As I matured in life, completed school, and started building my own life. Now I wake up earlier than the sun, I think of bills, and wonder how to get a little money to cover so many needs.
Life gave me so many obligations I never anticipated having. Some nights I would sit in my small room and stare at the ceiling, wondering what sacrifice would be the least agonizing.
It was in those soliloquizing moments that I understood why Papa's shoes hurt. Days of selling some of my stuff to fund a bill in school helped me understand what his words meant: Education is better than a car.
Papa's love was not vociferous. It was not soothing words or affectionate hugs. His love was an unseen battle he fought within himself in silence. That hard decision to walk instead of driving so I could get back to school.
With proper understanding, now I know that he doesn't love me less. He loved me more than I was capable of understanding then. I just couldn't see it.
And now, as I try to provide for my little ones, I hold his lesson in my heart: until you take a mile walk in someone else's shoes, you don't really understand the weight they carry.