Confessions of a Fat Girl 50: The Only Solution

June 8, 2018

1416

January 22^nd, 2010

Ogonna’s e-mail was the first thing I saw this morning.

Picking up my phone, I opened the e-mail with shaky hands…only to let out a disappointed hiss when I saw its contents.

Good luck!

Good luck?! Good luck?!

Looking at the time, I saw that it was just about midnight her time. Knowing my sister’s nocturnal lifestyle, I knew she would most surely still be awake. Grabbing my phone, I proceeded to call her.

“What on earth do you mean by GOOD LUCK??!” I yelled, the moment she answered the phone.

“What more do you want me to say?!” she yelled back. “Since you have decided to make a saint out of your father, good luck to you! I will have no hand with that!”

“And after almost 2 weeks, that’s the best you can come up with??!” I demanded, my voice raised enough to make JJ turn in his sleep.

“Look, Ihunna! Whatever you and Akwaugo decide to do with that man is your concern! I will have no part in it!” she said, with an air of finality.

“What do you mean me and Akwaugo?!” I demanded. “Someone I haven’t heard from either!”

“She didn’t reply your e-mail? Or call?” Ogonna asked, sounding genuinely shocked.

“Haven’t you two spoken?” I asked incredulously.

“No, we haven’t. After I got your e-mail…” Ogonna’s voice broke off, “Let’s just say it took me to a dark place.”

I covered my mouth with my hands. If Ogonna and Akwaugo hadn’t talked at all, since I’d sent that e-mailed, and I hadn’t talked to either of them, it meant we had all been hurting alone…instead of with each other.

Even without having to ask the next question, I knew.

“Have you been comfort eating?” I asked.

Ogonna laughed nervously. “I’ve gained 20 pounds since the day I opened that blasted e-mail!”

Sitting on my bed, at 5.50am, that Friday morning, I suddenly realized the primary reason behind my inability to stick with my diet. Despite having a contrary perspective of things than I had a few months ago, it’s clear that I am still struggling with my Daddy issues. And, apparently, so are my sisters.

“Ihunna, I don’t understand how naïve you can be sometimes!” Ogonna said, her voice sounding stronger. “You wrote that e-mail like someone watching from the window…and not someone who experienced it first hand!!!”

“Ogonna, trust me when I say that the man was sincere!”

“Please spare me with sincere!” she screamed so loud, I was almost sure Patrick would hear it on this side. “Spare me with ‘he was doing it out of love!’ Was it love that made him nickname me ‘enyí’ when we were growing up?! My own father thought it amusing to call me an elephant?!”

The sudden memory of his nickname for her almost made me burst out laughing, until I remembered my own nickname. Fụrụ akpụ…or swollen!

“May God punish that man forever! I guess it was love that made him always throw my food away, sending me hungry to bed each time!”

I had another vivid memory of my father shouting about our portion sizes, before grabbing our plates and emptying them in the dustbin…regardless of how hungry we were, or who was in our company!

Yes, the man had been extreme…I won’t lie. But I found myself still brimming with the conviction that he hadn’t been lying to me this Christmas. When I had spoken with him, all I had seen was a truthful man…a man labored with the knowledge that his actions were the cause of his estrangement from his daughters.

“Ogonna, please, you need to try to make it here to see him. For your own benefit. Let us try to make the best of the years he has left!”

“My main concern is how to burn off the 20 lbs that you somehow helped me gain. That is my primary focus, abeg! I am not interested in making making the best of anything. If I never see that man again in my life, it wouldn’t be a loss!”

After she had hung up, I sat in bed for a few minutes longer, thinking about everything. It suddenly dawned on me that my sisters and I will never achieve anything over the phone.

From the way it’s looking, a trip to see them to talk about might be the only possible solution!

Photo Credit

http://www.tohlejokes.com

Catch up on Ihunna’s story here:

Confessions of a Fat Girl 50: The Only Solution

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