Annabella, oh, Annabella, I come to you with love
Annabella, sweet Annabella, please hear me from above
Annabella, oh, Annabella, I’m in so much pain
Annabella, sweet Annabella, for I’ll never see you again
A monologue of sadness and misery has invaded my mind
I have no prerogative; my subconscious has left me behind
Locked up in intense silence, I’m detached from reality
I’m alone and lost, but too numb to seek for liberty
The voices in my head try to surface, but my mouth is paralyzed
I can feel the angel of death behind me, or maybe I just feel hypnotized
I’m trapped within four walls, and I cannot escape from this place
I miss you dear mother; my eyes long to see your face
The doctors don’t understand me; they don’t look beyond my insanity
All they see is a traumatized young woman; they don’t see my true misery
I wish I could go back to my old self; smiling with no care in the world
I’m stuck in the past of when I was still your little girl
My heart is naked; you are no longer here to protect it
My life is a mess; my own mind can no longer direct it
I’m so sorry I’ve let you down by ruining my own life
Now I’ll never be successful; I’ll never be a mother or a wife
****
Love
Love. Mother had never been able to define love. “Love lives on even when the body perishes”, is what she often told me. I had never fully understood what she had meant, but at that time of my life, I needed to feel her love more than ever…
One afternoon, about six months after being admitted to the rehabilitation centre, I sat on a bench in front of the main building with my eyes lifted to the sky. As I watched the clouds slowly shift in the sky, I remembered that mother would always say, “Don’t focus so much on the clouds, Mary-Rose, or else all you will foresee is rain”. However that afternoon, there was a particular cloud that had taken all my attention for it was shaped like a rose which had just blossomed. It reminded me of the beautiful rose which had blossomed in mother’s dead garden; the rose which had blossomed out of nowhere above mother’s blood-stained portrait which I had buried. Lost in my admiration of the cloud, my reverie was suddenly interrupted when I heard a voice say, ‘’it’s shaped just like a blossomed rose’’. The man seated next to me had his eyes on the cloud with a smile on his face. When he realised that I had stopped looking at the sky and that my attention was focused on him, he turned to me and said “I’m Michael. I’m an intern here. It’s my first day”. He shook my hand and walked back into the main building. For the first time in a while, something had attracted my curiosity and to my surprise, I wanted to get to know the man…
After twelve months of rehabilitation, it was finally time for me to be discharged.
“Are you excited to go home Mary-Rose?”, a nurse said the morning of my discharge.
“Home?”
“Yes Mary-Rose. We’re discharging you today. You get to go home”
“I don’t have a home”.
As I folded my clothes and placed them into my suitcase, I realised that I truly had no home. The only place that I had once called home was now a constant reminder of the night of mother’s murder. Nevertheless, mother’s house was the first place I asked Josephine to take me to. I just wanted to sit and reflect on life. At the house, I went straight to the garden to dig out mother’s portrait that I had buried. To my surprise, the rose was still there; firmly rooted into the soil. I admired the precious flower with confusion and slight disbelief. How could a flower blossom out of nowhere and look so unrealistically alive and beautiful after two years? It hadn’t changed one bit since the first time that I had seen it. It just majestically stood in the soil, luscious as ever, its leaves gently blowing in the breeze…
Josephine had informed me that father had been ill for a few months and that he had been released from prison for medical care. As I sat next to my dying father, I held his hand and cried silently. “I am so sorry”, he whispered. I stared at the tear that slowly went done his right cheek and I sighed. I gently placed a Bible I had brought next to father’s head and said, “I forgive you for all the things you did and I pray that God may forgive you too. I love you father and I am sure that mother forgives you too’’. As I finished my sentence, I realised that father wasn’t holding my hand anymore. I looked at his face and his eyes were slowly closing. He expired a few seconds later...
When the priest asked for one of Thomas Spencer’s family members to say a word during the funeral service, I volunteered without hesitation:
In this world, we are all pilgrims; we are born, we live and we die. When we die, the people left behind remember us based on the life we lived. A lot of you here today will remember Thomas Spencer as the man who killed his own wife, and I assure you that if he died at least one week before the day he did, I would also have had that same memory of him; but today I’d like you all to know that that is not the memory of my father that I’ll keep. Believe you me that forgiveness can set you free and behold today I’ll remember Thomas Spencer as the loving father who held me in his arms every night after work. Forgiving isn’t forgetting but forgiveness allows you move on with your life. Rest in peace dear father and may God forgive you. I’ll love you forever.
Mother loved father with all her heart. By the look in her eyes, she loved him even when he held the gun to her head. Her ability to love even when love seemed impossible was remarkable. I guess I didn’t need courage to forgive father; I needed to remember that somewhere in my heart I still loved him. Love made it possible. Love helped him rest in peace…
****
Life
Life. The beauty of life lays in the fact that it never ends; it just evolves into something greater. Death may be the end of life on Earth, but death is only the beginning of a new life: Eternal life. This is what mother believed; this is what she taught me…
The day arrived for me to give birth to my first child. Dr Michael and I had gotten married about a year after father’s death. We had chosen to get married in mother’s garden in front of the miraculous flower which was still firmly rooted in the soil after over three years. When the nurse brought me my baby girl for the first time, I broke down in tears. As I held the little girl, the thirty two hours of excruciating labour meant nothing anymore. She was perfect and she looked just like mother; she had the same eyes, nose, lips and skin colour. I decided to name her after my mother, Annabella.
Upon our arrival at mother’s old house, which had become our home after the wedding, the first thing I wanted to do was to show my baby girl the mysterious rose which had remained alive for nearly four years. I went to the garden with little Annabella in my arms and to my extreme disappointment, the rose was no longer there. It hadn’t left any residue; nothing was left to prove that the miraculous rose had once blossomed there. In an attempt to make the best out of a bad situation, I asked my husband to help me dig out the portrait of mother that I had buried before I had gone to Kinshasa. I wanted to hang the portrait in little Annabella’s bedroom so that she would know how beautiful her grandmother once was. When he handed the portrait to me, I took a cloth to clean off the soil and when I was done, I witnessed a miracle: the portrait wasn’t my mother’s anymore; it was a picture of my new-born baby, Annabella, holding the beautiful mysterious rose that had once blossomed out of nowhere. Next to the image were engraved the words: ‘’the rose has blossomed’’…
Annabella, my dear daughter, you are only three days old, but I’ve decided to write this story today so that one day when I am no longer by your side, you may find strength in it. And when you do I want you to remember that though death may hurt the living, life is never lost; life goes on in the hearts of those that we once loved.
###
Thank you for reading this short s
tory. Although this is purely fiction, the overall message is one which I hope you will remember from this day forward:
Optimism – Will – Courage – Forgiveness – Love – Life
May you remember these words and their meanings, and may they guide you through life’s ups and downs.
Thank you again for reading this short story. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favourite retailer and share the book with your loved-ones?
Thanks!
May God bless you.
Stella Mpisi
About Stella Mpisi
Born on 11 May 1992 in Johannesburg of two Congolese (Democratic Republic of Congo) parents, Stella Mpisi is the second born of a family of three beautiful girls. In 2003, both her parents died simultaneously in a car. After the tragic death, things turned upside down and life took an unexpected turn. In 2012, Stella published her first book, an autobiography. Today, Stella is an active writer, blogger and colourism activist.
Connect with me online
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Other titles by Stella Mpisi
Sweet Memories: Tears of a melody (autobiography, 2012)
Future titles by Stella Mpisi
The Day Pigs Fly (fiction, short story)
Sweet Memories: Smiles of a Memory (non-fiction, autobiography)
The Dating Game (non- fiction, self-help book)
Dear God (fiction, short story)
The Suicidal (fiction, short story)
The Ring (fiction, novel)
Reversa (fiction, novel)
The Legend of Leo Maccoy (fiction, novel)
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