And Then Life Happens (32 page)

“Just like that?” I asked incredulously.

“Of course not just like that,” he replied, frowning. “We're really sorry, of course. But it costs a lot of money to run the machine, and your mother unfortunately has no insurance. Who is paying for her treatment? The hospital cannot afford these expenses.”

“Aha, it's because of the money. That's why you want to shut off the machine?”

Without batting an eye, he replied, “That's the way it is, unfortunately.”

Slowly, I approached the doctor. I sat down opposite him, looked him directly in the eyes, and said resolutely, “Listen to me closely. You will tell my mother nothing. Not a thing! Nor will you shut off the machine! First of all: When and how my mother learns that she is going to die the family still gets to decide. Secondly: As for the costs, I will find out what is doable and what is not. And thirdly: You gave me this news without any preparation, without any advice on how I could cope with it. You know that my mother has other relatives, too. You've seen that she has visitors. And still you did not think it necessary to ask me whether I might need the support of other family members during this conversation? For that reason alone, I do not accept your diagnosis or your decision. And I will tell that to your superior, too.”

I had spoken without interruption, almost in one breath, with anger and distress in my voice. The doctor was about to reply, but before he could say anything, I stood up and left the room.

*   *   *

Ben had come with my mother to England, and now he had extended his stay so that the two of us could take care of her and could make sure that she received the best possible treatment. We were also supported by relatives and friends, and I was astonished when I found out how many of them lived in London. Despite the anxiety-provoking situation, I was glad that it had given us the opportunity to meet. After several years of isolation in Bracknell, I really enjoyed their company. My mother's illness brought us all closer together. We comforted each other and talked about our lives in England. During that time, I definitely could not complain of loneliness.

*   *   *

Over all those weeks and months, I had remained in contact with Marvin. Once I had even been able to meet him in Windsor, when he had an extended layover in England on one of his flights. As much as I wanted to be together with him, my pride did not allow me to make moves in that direction, and so we maintained a distance that was agonizing for me. So I was all the more surprised when one day—my mother was still in the London hospital—he offered to come to England to be by my side.

“I don't have much to do at the moment, and I'm sure you could use some support. If you want, I'll come.”

Of course I wanted that! Not a day passed that I didn't think of him, despite everything that preoccupied and weighed on me. Not a day passed without the painful hope that he longed to be close to me as much as I longed to be close to him.

I explained to him how badly my mother was doing. “The doctors are afraid that she won't survive.”

“I'm already on my way,” he replied. “Stay strong.”

I was grateful for his encouragement. That was just what I needed now—besides a shoulder to lean on, of course. After that phone call, I finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Soon after our conversation, Marvin arrived in England. We sat together daily at my mother's bedside—she apparently took the stranger to be some friend, and I let her believe that. Marvin and I often took long walks on the bank of the Thames. The tension of the past months drained away from me as we strolled along the water, and for a brief time I had the soothing feeling of not having to bear the worry for my mother alone. Marvin helped me make decisions, and when the pressure became overwhelming, I wept on his shoulder. He managed to make me laugh. And one evening, he even took me out to a salsa club, for he knew how much I loved to dance.

But as wonderful as it was to have Marvin with me, his visit left a bitter aftertaste. Even though he obviously liked me—otherwise he would not have come all that way to see me—he did not seem to find it hard to head back to the States.

*   *   *

As if by a miracle, just a few days after my conversation with the doctor, my mother could be taken off her dialysis machine. She had turned the corner, and it was now possible to transfer her back to Wexham Park Hospital, to a normal ward.

“Your mother is a true fighter,” a nurse remarked admiringly.

“Thank God.” That was all I could say in response.

When my mother was finally released from the hospital, she was still far from recovered. She suffered not only from the effects of the intense medication, but also from a lack of companionship. The friends and family members from London lived too far away, and around Bracknell there was no one she knew well. She was completely dependent on Akinyi and me for company.

Her loneliness exacerbated my own. I now no longer left the house much, because I was taking care of her most of the time. She was afflicted by intense leg pain, and there was already talk of hip replacements. All this often put her in a morose mood, and I had to muster a lot of patience in dealing with her.

Because I could understand her despondency and the oppressive loneliness only too well, I looked desperately for a way to help her. Finally, I found a group of older women who met once a week for tea and did various activities together. Though my mother had her difficulties with English, I was certain that she would overcome them with time. Gradually things started looking up.

At that time, I often wondered which of us was the child and which the mother. After all the worry and the exhausting period spent taking care of my mother, I eventually could not help feeling some indignation. The relationship between my mother and me was complicated, even though we never spoke about it. Ever since I had gotten to know her at the age of thirteen, I carried around with me the feeling that I owed her something. Perhaps that was because I had actually forgotten her over the long years of separation and had not loved her from afar. In some way, I felt as if I had to make up for that and as if I were responsible for her. Although it should have actually been the other way around—it had been she, after all, who had given me up, deprived me of her motherly love.

These thoughts troubled me. I wished that I at least had a shared history with her, shared experiences of joy and sorrow—everything that belonged to a family life. And something that could serve as a justification for the hard work and the sacrifices I now had to bear for her sake. But then I thought of my own daughter and knew instantly why I was doing all this. It was for her. Even if it might be too late for me, Akinyi still had a chance to develop a good relationship with my mother. My daughter could nurture an intact connection with her grandmother without the burden of any family tragedies, I thought. When I managed to see things that way, it was suddenly no longer so hard for me to be there for my mother.

*   *   *

During her hospital stay, I had explained to the authorities why my mother could not leave the country after the expiration of her visa. Now the worrisome question arose as to what would become of her if she were deported. In Kenya, we had not had the best experiences with family care. All our relatives were too preoccupied with their own problems. And it seemed just as questionable whether my mother would get the proper further medical treatment there.

“Why don't you ask whether she can stay with you permanently?” a friend suggested to me, when I had told her about my misgivings.

“Impossible. They're so strict with us Africans.”

“Just try it. Inquire with a lawyer.”

“I would need money for that,” I replied with resignation.

“Certainly—ordinarily. But your case is unusual. Your mother is sick. I'll look into what can be done.”

So I took on, with my friend's encouragement, the long, arduous process—involving red tape, driving from one place to another, endless telephone calls and appointments—of obtaining permanent residence for my mother in England. One day, to our joy, a letter finally arrived informing us of the decision of the Home Office that Grace Kezia Aoko Obama was permitted to stay in Great Britain. An official document followed, complete with the royal seal of her majesty Elizabeth II.

 

27.

I
N THE MEANTIME
, I had taken a new position with the Bracknell Youth Service in a program called Connexions. I was able to leave my job as project manager and could now work full-time for the Youth Service. I was tasked with helping children and youth from difficult family circumstances get an education or find training or employment opportunities.

I had been doing this for almost two years when I was entrusted with the Bridget Case. Bridget had just turned seventeen and was homeless. Because she was underage and without fixed abode, she was entitled to state support, for which she had applied with the authorities in Bracknell, where she had last resided.

When we inquired about the application at the office, we were told that a different agency was now responsible for it. But there, no one knew anything, and we were sent to a third agency, which itself referred us elsewhere, until we ended up back at the first office, where now someone was able to produce the sought-after application after all. The whole back and forth involved hours of phone calls, which the girl would never have been able to handle successfully on her own. Without my help she would have given up and gone on sleeping “under a bridge.”

Bureaucratic obstacle courses of this sort went with the territory of this work. But as a staff member under the Social Services Department, I could at least insist on responses and the expediting of processes, even if often not much came of it. To expect young people who lived on the fringes of society to find their way in all this on their own was, however, too much to ask. Most of them had no idea that they had rights. They did not even expect to be treated better when they ended up caught in the wheels of bureaucracy, in which they constantly had the feeling that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.

Although I knew many colleagues who really strove to make a difference, I was frustrated by the often rather scant sympathy the authorities showed the youth in need. As a result, I had to struggle hard to allay the young people's mistrust toward adults, including myself. In light of my cultural background, I was often astonished by the enormous gulf that divided the youth and adults where I worked. I was convinced that the adults needed to be much more responsive to the young people. In most cases, unfortunately, the exact opposite was the case: The youth had to adapt. They were expected to fit in and assume their predetermined place in the social structure. In Kenya, too, there were certainly strict rules to which you had to adhere, but family had such a strong influence on the lives of the children and youth that such a wide gap between the generations was not likely in the first place.

In light of these experiences, I began to reflect on how I could contribute to fundamentally changing the situation for these young people. It was clear to me that as a Connexions staff member I could take them by the hand for only a brief time and could not really improve much about their lives. So I applied one day for a position that had been created some time ago in the Youth Service of the neighboring town of Wokingham. The work there essentially consisted of giving children and youth the opportunity to participate more intensely in decisions affecting them. Following orders from on high, the initiative sought to provide them with a platform from which they could express themselves and be taken seriously. This work seemed to be tailor-made for me and my vision.

I prepared thoroughly for the interview and was overjoyed when I got the job.

But my plans and those of my colleagues were often thwarted by lack of funds. The second most important task besides the attempt to give children and youth a voice and greater self-esteem was the struggle for financial resources. For without the necessary money I, too, came under suspicion of making only empty promises.

Increasingly, I compared the British children with whom I worked at that time to Kenyan children. It pained me to see that they had so many more possibilities in comparison to their African counterparts and yet made so little of them. At the same time, I knew that these reflections were pointless (and would hardly have motivated the youth more). In many ways, the British boys and girls faced challenges that, under the prevailing circumstances, were just as difficult as those confronted by young people in my native country.

One such challenge was the scarcity of meeting places for young people that were not also centers where they were required to participate in specific character-building activities, leaving little room for them to just “hang out.” I never really understood why young people did not meet at each other's homes, until a colleague explained to me that the parents were often against it out of fear that their children and their friends would make a mess.

“But wouldn't that be better in the end than your daughter or son roaming around in some dark park and you as a parent not knowing what your child is up to?” I asked.

“I think these fathers and mothers have given up,” the colleague replied. “They don't want their children coming home late at night, but the children no longer obey them. They just do what they want.”

“Still, the parents could definitely do more,” I insisted.

“No. The British have ceded their responsibility in many respects to the state. For that reason they accept the status quo.”

So how was I supposed to improve anything for young people, if the parents themselves weren't pulling together? I wondered. More than ever, I was aware of how little I could change the existing conditions. I thought of Akinyi, who was eight already, and at that moment, only a few miles away, lay safely ensconced in her bed. What would become of her once she was a teenager? Would I be able to keep tabs on her behavior outside the home? For some time, the thought had been repeatedly crossing my mind that it would be better to leave England before I was confronted with such a situation. I simply could not imagine my daughter in a poorly lit park, hanging around with other, possibly unstable young people, even if it might be only under peer pressure.