How Responsible Am I?

Hey guys, how una dey? Hope you haven’t missed me too much? So I went for this family reunion over the weekend with my wife and something happened! Hmmm, I say, SOMETHING happened. You know I always have gist for you guys? *wink*

This article is more of a question rather than a QED’ed assertion. Remember we are all learning and I would love to steal a bit from you guys' knowledge. The question will come before the article and it is a simple one; how responsible are you for other people’s opinion of you? Okay, that is a positive way of asking the question. This is another way I want to ask the question; how much of the blame should be on you for other’s dislike of you?

That is my point of discussion and I will quickly relate my experience over the weekend.

I drove to my step brother’s place over the weekend with my wife obviously in discomfort but we had to because it is family function and partly also because we were in the program for the event. Our thanksgiving was supposed to be part of the program so we were compulsorily obliged to go there. Don’t get it twisted, we love family and we always want to be with family but only the ones who want to have us around.

Immediately I parked beside my step-brothers gate, we saw him at the gate but mistook him for someone else. It was around 8:30pm on a Saturday night. So I called out to the person at the gate and he assuming that we knew who he was but decided to feign ignorance just ignored us and walked into his house without even saying hello. That started the whole wahala! Ehm, sorry, I mean that started the wahala  for the bad weekend because my wahala with my step brother is actually an unending saga (cum gargantuan gaga, thanks to Obahiagbon)

Anyways, immediately we got in, I greeted him at the entrance to his sitting room and when I went in, he stopped my wife to report to her. What was my offence? I or my wife are yet to know specifically what I did wrong only that I wronged him. And it is not because of the incidence at the gate, it goes even deeper. Let me share

My step brother is older than me with exactly 30 years! Over the course of years, I realized that, or so ‘it seemed’, that my father showed more love to us than he did to him. According to my mom, my dad really mistreated him and gave us more attention, more also because the first born from my mother’s side was a cute handsome boy who misbehaved a lot yet saw the good face of my dad.

(Now, I am only assuming, don’t take my words too seriously. I am also trying to piece together the puzzle to the whole scene)

Whilst he grew up without his mom in my father’s house for a long time, he saw my mom as an imposter and someone who took away the joy of childhood. So all I can assume right now is that he hates us; he hates the 6 of us from our mother’s side and that’s not because he wants to but because he had too. That was what got him through life. That was how he got to survive and become the successful man that he is today.

When he finished from form 5, he approached my dad (his dad too) for tuition fee so as to go to the university but my Dad blatantly told him that he doesn’t sponsor children to the university. if he is interested in going to the university, he has to look for funds by himself. Wow! What kind of father says that to his FIRST child? (Chaiiii, ayam washing my dirty linen out here) but that was what my dad told my step brother and trust me if someone told me that I would be bitter.

Now throughout this incidental time, I wasn’t even born. You see how people suffer for what they don’t even know about? Hahahahaha…. So funny! He got himself together, borrowed money, got some from his mom and eventually went to the University of Lagos to study Economics. He met a fine lady and she was instrumental to his successful completion of tertiary education. But all through his life, he tried as much as possible to prove to my father, his father, that he was also worth being his son.

When he got 3 fantastic jobs and needed to chose, it was my father who told him to stay with CBN even though the pay was not as good as the two other banks and he obeyed without questions. When he buys food stuff at home, my father wouldn't touch it or allow us to because he felt he was sufficient unto himself and his 'immediate' family. When he begged my dad to allow us come stay with him so that he could be responsible for our training, my father resisted the idea.

I guess he paid for his mother's itinerant attitude towards my dad and the chain of pain just kept getting stronger.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was when he told my dad he wanted to marry and my dad said he won’t marry the same girl that had helped him all through school. What was the reason my step brother asked but all my father could say was that she wasn’t his wife. Like seriously???? That wasn’t enough for him so my step-brother went ahead with the marriage without my father’s consent or presence at the venue.

With this story, you can get a picture of the what I stand against, right? What my siblings from my mother’s side stands against whether or whether’nt we act right or not. In fact for years, we didn't visit him or even said hello to each other until recently when he left the wife my father told him not to marry and married a much cool headed and better person. Hmmmm, that is a story for another article but yes, he left her.

After 28 years of marriage or thereabout, they separated. My step brother had grown disillusioned and some very deep secrets became clear to him. Well, that part won’t be revealed to you guys but back to the matter, you can see for yourself the prejudiced and jaundiced mindset I would face. He has grown and become successful without the consent and support from the person/people who mattered most to him; His Dad and immediate step brothers and sisters.

While growing up, for me, I looked up to him a lot. I always wanted to go to his place and spend the little holiday that I had. I would fantasize about it and beg my mom to allow me go as young as 5. But when I got there, I always get harsh reception from his wife. She was the cruelest being I ever met and she can be very rude, distasteful and unappealing. I grew up trying to understand what I did wrong to her and by extension my step brother. As much as I would want to be ‘right’, I NEVER was right. I could never be right and so I decided I will never come visit him again which I didn't.

When I got admitted into the university and asked him to support me; he was vociferously unkind about it and although he sent me N30, 000 at the time (and that was all I got from him), from then till now I have not heard the last of it. To him, we were not worth asking him for help because we didn't ‘care’ about him. All we wanted was his money and not because we ‘loved’ him. For a long time he would say this and I kept asking and looking for ways to please him but that would be like a needle passing through the camel's eyes.

I would call him and say hello but his response was cold and un-receptive. When you don't call, wahala, and when you call too much another wahala. If he doesn't pick, he was never going to call back or he was never going to call you on his own accord and say hello to you. It was that bad, I mean, it is that bad. When I began to research into the problem and I started getting all these information I am sharing right now, I began to understand the issue and it just dawned on me to ask the question; Am I responsible for someone else’s hate towards me? How much responsible am I in this case?

To me, I see it as God complex. Developed over time by clinging to the past and never letting go of what hurt you especially as a kid. No one in the present can ever be responsible for that but yourself.

The reason that i wronged him presently, I am guessing, could be that after calling him over 4 times in the last one month, just to thank him for the impact he made during my wedding, it became obvious that the calls were too much. I stopped! I guess I shouldn't have! Apart from this, absolutely nothing else that I did wrong. And I can say that in 2 years, he has only called me ONCE. Not that I need his calls but I need to really know what I can do to help him.

This is my story.

Shalom!