THE EXPERIENCE

It was an amazing thing to be alive and to know that a whole lot of us, especially our loved ones live with us. In our world, there is nothing like shadows or worries. We have come to realize that we live in a dark world. A really dark world and we can’t see but we can feel, hear, move and eat. Through feeling and touch, we came to know that we were two and so we lived like that with our loving parents. When we knew our mother was sick, it affected us too because we hate to know any one of our parents was hurt. But in the midst of all kinds of stress, troubles and sicknesses, love was so strong within and around us; individually and as a family. It was really amazing. We never really worried about our dark world or sights because we were always safe around our parents. But we began to see it as a big deal when our father talked to our mother about us. “I’m worried about them,” we heard our father say to our mother with a hint of worry in his voice, “it’s about time we go see the doctor so that we can know what steps to take. It’s not wise for us to not do something in their condition.” We heard our mother sigh and breathe deeply again as if she found it difficult to talk. Then we heard her respond to what our father had said. We were always around them, most especially our mother so it wasn’t a new thing to hear what they discussed. “We will go to the doctor but not with such worrisome look on your face. Like I said, they are really fine,” she said as she touched us lovingly and we felt a smile appearing on her face, “they are not in a very bad or even bad conditions so thank God. Don’t worry, ok?” We felt our father’s face close to us as he kissed us and we reached out to him. “Ok,” he said and sighed, “Just don’t hesitate to tell me whatever it is that you don’t like.” We felt our mother nod in response to him and our father leaned towards us again in a warm embrace and said; “Don’t hesitate to tell us what you don’t like or when you are not well. We will always be there for you.” He kissed us again after saying so and all we wanted was to see his face and that of our loving and sweet mother’s. So we could only nod and kiss him back. As we heard the sound of what seemed to be like the television, we began playing with ourselves while our parents seemed to enjoy the program from their laughter and opinions. It was a good day. On one occasion, we were with our mother and we heard voices coming from outside as they walked into the sitting room. It took us a while to recognize and count the voices. They were our mother’s friends and they had come to greet her on a day our mother didn’t go to work. We didn’t know what day it was but we were happy she was home with us. “Your children are so quiet and gentle on you,” we heard one of them say to our mother. “Yes o,” said another, “you are really lucky my dear. It is a lot of work when you have just one child and you have loads of stress and worries on you while taking care of him, not to talk of two, and they are not even bothering you at all, haaa, abeg, God really open eye bless you o.” We heard them chuckle as our mother laughed shortly. “God no just bless me with them, He made them blessings to me and I can’t be more thankful for that,” we heard our mother say as she touched us both. This gladdened us as we happily adjusted on where we were sitting. “How oga na? I can see he is really taking care of you and your children,” we heard one of them say. Our mother laughed happily. Then they began talking about things we didn’t understand and didn’t like so we began playing with ourselves and as we played, we mistakenly hit our mother. “Ouch,” we heard her say as we stopped immediately and became quiet, “please be gentle when playing, ok?” she said as she touched us and continued with her discussion. Since we couldn’t play, we did things like stretching until we fell asleep. We woke up to hear our father happily telling our mother something that happened at work. Where we lay next to our mother, she greeted us as we clung tightly to her. That meant we were hungry as we were not also blessed with talking but communicating through body and behavioral language. “Oh my babies have woken up,” we heard our mother say to our father who had reached out to us and kissed us. “I love you both very much,” he said to us as we couldn’t do anything but love him with our hearts. He knew we love him, even though we can’t express it. His prayer is only if we could see and talk, he would be the happiest. Our mother fed us with our usual, which was a lump for every swallow with something deliciously slimy. It was better than the last one we ate that made us sick because it wasn’t good at all. We finished this meal hungrily as our mother had also joined to eat with us. Just before we went to sleep again, we heard our father talking angrily at someone but it wasn’t our mother because we would have heard her voice but it was strange to hear our father talk angrily. As we slept, we just kept feeling the strong presence of love over us. It was a good feeling. We always sleep with our parents so anything we need they can always get it for us without us groping and crying. We had woken up hungry and we were beginning to roll on each other and began hitting our mother to wake up so she could give us food. She eventually fed us something cold and sweet and we liked it as we ate and eventually drank water, played a little and went back to sleep. One time we woke up, we heard our father telling our mother to get ready so he could take us to the doctor. We held our hands as we were scared of what he wanted the doctor to do to us. We were carried into the car as it began to move backwards, then it moved forward. We never understood why the car will first move back before moving forward. “They are so adorable and looking very fine,” we heard the doctor say too our parents as he removed a cold thing from our chests, “just give them more water and more vitamins like I told you.” “Thank you sir,” we heard our mother reply as we stood up to leave. The meeting wasn’t so scary after all not with all those cold things all over our bodies and the sharp sounds from something else, who won’t be frightened? Our father was speaking to us at one time and he sounded happy. The doctor had given my parents hope that we would be able to see and talk in a very short period and they were so happy. We were so happy that we were jumping and hugging our parents. That was the only way we could express happiness. The thing that we really loved was that the ever presence of love and a more powerful presence that seemed to make us feel protected was always around us, everywhere we go. Our parents love each other so much that we feel it all the time and they love us too. We have our own expectation and that is to see them and be able to run around and talk without restraint. Hearing what the doctor said was a delightful thing for us. “I really can’t wait for that day to come,” our father said to us as he touched us and held on to us, “I really can’t wait.” We felt our mother sleeping because she wasn’t responding to what our father said so we entangled ourselves in an embrace of love, expectation, faith and trust. It was amazing. Our mother woke up and we heard her crying to our father that it was going to be a miraculous and wonderful day and that she couldn’t wait. She held us and gently played with us and we heard her say; “Dear God, You are the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End and I worship and thank You for these blessings You have given to me and for the great hope and faith we have in You. Lord I ask that on that special day, let blessings rain on us and let us have every reason to rejoice and be happy in Jesus name; amen.” We have heard her talk to this person every time and yet we don’t hear this person’s response but we feel his presence strongly around us. We also had the faith to meet the person called God. We had a good feeling about it. Then our mother rubbed something oily on us and we felt a good powerful feeling run through us. This brought us more hope and a stronger force in us as we held ourselves tightly to bond with this force. The period came when we heard our father happily telling our mother that he love her so much and he loves us more than anything in the world and that he couldn’t wait for us to finally see them. We began to dance excitedly as our mother touched us and we felt her looking at us. Our expectations all together were really high and strong and we loved our mother because she was always bonding with this force that surprisingly kept us protected and safe. Our father happily drove us to meet with the doctor who was all set and awaiting us. The doctor told our parents that they shouldn’t worry or be afraid that everything will be alright. He said we won’t be able to talk for a while and that it was normal but we will be able to see, move around without being carried after...after, there is a word he had used right there; well he said we will be alright. As the doctor set instruments and cold things all over our bodies which had made us uncomfortable, we began to panic as the feeling of being able to see and not feel compressed was overwhelmingly scary. We heard our mother cry with effort and our father, we heard him talking to the person called God. As we wondered what could be going on and how God had known we were going through this, a very sharp light almost blinded our initial blindness and we began to cry. As the doctor and our parents helped us get through it, the light was more overpowering and we were shaking and scared as our hearts beat very fast. Oh the light was painful to our eyes as we tried to open them but crying was the only thing we could do. Yet, we could hear our father exclaiming ‘oh my God’ and our mother saying ‘Jesus I thank you’. We felt someone’s hand touch us and carry us from the bed we were laying, where we had transitioned from a blind world to a world full of light. In that instant, we looked up and saw the most beautiful face ever and there was water running down her face. She smiled and said “Jesus you are awesome. Look at my children. I love you both my little darlings.” We recognized our mother’s voice and matched it to the face. Our mother was so beautiful and another face came into our view but not like our mother’s. He said, “Welcome to our world.” It was our father. We began to calm down and smiled weakly. Our mother and father’s faces had water all over them. It was again, an amazing experience for us, as being in the dark world taught us to endure and be patient and to love whole heartedly and hope and the painful, frightful, yet, wonderful moment of transition showed us that we were prepared enough for the great world of light which we were now beginning to see little by little. Now we could hear well. We heard our father telling someone who wasn’t our mother something. He was happily saying it. He said, “My wife has given birth to a set of twins…” He looked down at us after talking and he had a look of fulfillment on his face and he smiled. “Welcome to the future,” he said to us as he kissed us.