We were coming home from evening service when Mummy jokingly told me that I have been hiding from her. Whenever Mummy talked that way, I could tell that she had something important to discuss with me. She uses such statement to get my full attention. I acted as if I didn’t know what she wanted and followed her line of statement.

“Mummy what are you insinuating?” I asked amidst laughter.

“Son, I am not insinuating anything, I am stating the fact. Why have I not been seeing you, if you are not deliberately avoiding me?”

“Mummy, you are not always at home. Early in the morning, you are rushing to work. Evening, you are in church. Most Sunday evenings you go for programmes and come back late. Is it that time that I will be disturbing you?”

“Whenever you notice that I am around, disturb me. I am not complaining. How can I stay for weeks without discussing with my son when there are lots of issues to sort out?”

Immediately Mummy landed, I smiled. I could always win a bet if Mummy is involved. When we got home, she opened up on why she wanted to see me.

“Kelvin, you are no longer a child. From the information you gave me about your birth date, I did some calculations. My calculation revealed that you are 30 years old. By the grace of God, you have a functional business, an apartment where you are living and a car. So, I want you to start thinking about marriage. There are lots of God fearing girls in the church. I am not saying that your wife must come from our local church. However you must marry a child of God. You need to pray for God to give you the bone of your bone and the flesh of your flesh. Son, am I making sense at all? Why is your head bowed?” Mummy asked, trying to maintain an eye contact with me.

“Mum, I am hearing what you are saying.” I answered even as I purposely tried to evade her gaze. When she noticed I was not comfortable looking at her face, she let me be and resumed her speech.

“The choice of a life partner should not be joked with. Some who made the wrong choice have spent the rest of their lives in regret. Some are even wishing their partners death so they can be free. You have all the time now to make the right choice. Tell God to give you his daughter as a wife. But that will be possible, if you are his son. Go and pray over what I just told you. I know that you must have been praying about your marriage but now, you have to intensify your efforts in it. I can’t wait to meet my daughter-in-law.”

“I will do as you said Mum,” I pledged.

“See, I don’t want you to bother yourself about money. The wedding expenses are on me. I promised my children, that any of them that honoured God and did not bring shame to me. I will be the one to sponsor the wedding. I did it for John and Ugomma. Till today, their weddings are still the talk of the town. It is true that Ugomma married a rich man, yet the wedding was sponsored by me. By the grace of God, I have been blessed financially by God. Money is not a problem. If you honour God and also find a God fearing lady as a wife to be, then leave the rest for me.”

“Mum, are you serious about this,” I asked in excitement.

Mummy smiled and asked me to find out from my sisters. I shouted in excitement and Chika ran out from her room.

“Bros, what is going on?” Chika asked.

“Busy body will you get back to your room. You gossip a lot,” I joked.

“Mum can you hear what Bros is saying?”

“Try and prove him wrong that you are not a gossiper. Go back to your room,” Mummy responded.

“It’s my fault. It’s just that I don’t hear with my ear. I will not get involved in you and mummy’s discussion again. Anyway, you will surely get a pay back,” She threatened jokingly and went back to her room.

I excused myself too and went back to my house. But the thought of the discussion I had with Mummy never left my mind. Truly, I had been thinking about marriage, but the experience of my father in marriage had always put fear in me. My father avoided coming home because of my step mother. Living with that woman could best be likened to someone thrown in the midst of soldier ants. It was pain all through.

“Perhaps marrying a child of God will make the difference. Mummy’s lifestyle has proven to me that there are still good women,” I thought.

I decided to pray over the matter as Mummy suggested. Though, I felt that discussing with Johnson would be a good option since he was a young man like me.