(This post is written for our writing group “Just Write”)
Life is full of maybe’s, as maybe we were born on a weekend, when our doctor was on a break, and maybe mum decided she will have us on her own without any help, similar to the nomads who cut the umbilical cord with a stone, maybe she had no milk to feed us, maybe we had a cow in our backyard, someone milked the cow and we were fed. Maybe that someone wasn’t there, hence my mum had to do it herself. Maybe we were asleep upon her return, and she went to sleep too until we will be awake when maybe we woke up screaming for food and a change in nappy.
Maybe the neighbours heard us crying and they rushed in like fools to find us in a messy situation, they cleaned us and fed us and let our mother sleep a bit to clear her mind from the long pregnancy. Where was our dad? Maybe he was at work, fixing the lights of the city while our house was still in darkness and was lit by some candles. Maybe he was travelling to repair his damaged eye.
Upon his return he was happy to see us, as we are being looked after by the neighbours and the relatives, while some others had taken care of our mum.
He brought food, and money, maybe he gave some to the neighbours as compensation, and maybe he left some for our mother to handle the house affairs as he had to leave the next day as usual.
Maybe he opened a small shop and hired someone to look after it, while he continued lighting up the roads of our city. Maybe it was not a city but an area that is as small as our hearts, and maybe because our hearts are large, we thought that the area is large too. Maybe we had shops close to our house, which is now big instead of a green room amidst other rooms in a house shared by the whole family of my dad, as well as the cow in the backyard.
Maybe we went on trips on a ship, and maybe one of us was going to fall in the sea if my aunt didn’t wake up and felt his place and it was empty and when she screamed everyone woke up and run to save him. Maybe we went to the country where my grandmother lives, and maybe my uncle went up the tree and waited for the birds, when they came, he killed them, cleaned their feathers and grilled them and fed us all. Maybe there was no money in my grandmother’s purse, so he did that to feed us.
We have a lot of Maybe’s, and life went on. Maybe we grew up and went to school, maybe we all passed wonderfully and went to universities around the world. Maybe we even found our husbands and wives from the areas we went to and maybe we had jobs, and maybe we had kids of our own, at the end there was no maybe’s, we all worked hard and made sure our kids had the best lives.
