THROUGH A MANS EYES.

by

Yashim Bayacham

Paul Adams could feel the glare of his mother’s inquiring eyes at the back of his head. It was so intense that he could feel the heat beneath the skin of his forehead trying to escape. He refused to be put off by the almost irresistible force that was tugging at the little shoe strings that were loosely attached to the child in him. He had a mental flash of his mother holding a feeding bottle and trying to force its glistening tip through his tightly shut mouth. He swallowed hard as if this mental image had lodged itself in his parched throat like a fish bone with evil intentions. He looked up at his father from where he sat. He could feel some unspoken opinion lurking beneath the prison of his father’s expressionless face. In the silence of unspoken words between him and his father, he could feel the alliance of partial understanding. Words that if spoken would be a taboo that will inevitably incur the wrath of his mother. A wrath that was so familiar to his father now afraid to face the woman whose anger was a promise that if he gave voice to that alliance he would go to bed that night with hunger in his stomach. The air was a charged stale mate of the unpredictable calm after a thunder storm had unsuccessfully tried to tear a hole in the sky. He was the sky, constant and resolute to maintain the status quo of his decision such that it wouldn’t have taken a seer to see that his mother was the thunder storm.

Why she would refuse to accept his final decision was beyond him. There had been times when he had been pushed to the brink of screaming right in her face, “If you love Jennifer so much, maybe you should go right ahead and get married to her!” Somehow he had chewed down those words and like chewing a bitter pill of aspirin the bitter taste had settled at the back of his tongue. His dad had been more accommodating. His words had seemed like a stepping out from a meltingly hot Lagos afternoon into a delightfully air conditioned banking hall. “If Maybell is the woman you feel you want to spend the rest of your life with, why don’t you bring her home so we can get to know her.” The instant his father uttered those words, it was signed sealed and delivered that he was bound to go to bed on an empty stomach. He had given more than he had ever thought was possible to give to see that his relationship with Jennifer transmogrified into the blissful union of marriage. What he had succeeded in doing was widening the corridors of confusion on the inner machinations of Jennifer’s mind while deepening his mother’s preference for the woman he had once thought he loved because she had reminded him of his mother. That explained why the moment he told his parents that he had made up his mind to marry Maybell, has mother automatically asked, “…and what of Jennifer?” This was how Paul tried to make his mother see how the man in him had found a good thing.

Every man is born with the desire to be celebrated if not in his home then by his peers. But the most desirous form of celebration of a man is that which comes from a woman especially one that he has chosen to offer his heart to on a platter of gold. The moment a man begins to feel that the little victories of his life seem not to elicit the encouragement he expects from his spouse, he may be likened to the Israelites who were charged by Pharoe to make bricks without straw. He begins to feel that the little victories of his life are swallowed up like pouring a cup of water on a sand dune. It should come as no surprise that the making of a man’s success and the actualisation of his dreams can come from a subtle source of richness; such richness can be found in the words of a woman whom a man holds dear to his heart.

The hardest point when a woman is in labour is that moment when the baby’s head begins to crown. At that point the pain is so mind blowing that she has no choice but to express such excruciating pain by screaming at the top of her voice. At such a moment it will be a thing of preposterous dimensions if one of the mid wives walks up to the woman and says, “SHUT UP! Do you think you are the only patient in this hospital?” This allegory is not far from the pain of expression a man can feel when he is on the brink of birthing a dream in to reality. For most men, the tipping point of success is a point where all they desire is a chance to voice their plans out. All they may simply need is the confidant ear of a listening woman, that woman of little beginnings who will take it upon herself just to listen to his plans, desires and dreams.  As funny or flippant as it may sound, all a man may sometimes need is the listening ear of that woman who filters out the noise and distractions of the world by simply, earnestly listening to his birthing screams. A woman who takes time to listen to her man at that crucial point of the birth of a dream is like a mid-wife who dabs a cool damp rag on his fore head and assures him that “all iz well”.  This basic truth certainly is not quantum physics. The moment a man fails to find in the woman he intends to spend the rest of his life with the qualities of a person he can entrust his dreams to, is the moment he begins to lose value in her companionship and worth but he in exchange sees the vainness of her selfishness.

The reassurance of the value of a man (the currency for a man’s true commitment in a relationship) is also a secret that has eluded many women especially career driven ones. There is a popular cliché that men are really like babies. At this point I can almost see the heads of the female readers nod in consensus. Pardon me if I sound a little bit blunt but, show me a man who doesn’t want to be reassured by the woman he loves that she still loves him to such a point that she fondly calls him baby and I’ll show you a man who didn’t see his parents express their love in front of him while growing up. While it does not fall as a duty for a woman to often tell her man how deeply in love she is with him, it falls as a prerequisite to a successful relationship if man can hear for himself the reassurance and the reaffirmation of his heartthrob’s love. It is a thing less common amongst career driven women who characterise today’s fast food dinner age. Here is a brain teaser for all ladies out there; another password to a man’s heart is not only through his stomach. Try calling him “my baby” once in a while. Suffice it to say that a bridge of affection has been discovered to a man’s heart by smart women who selflessly acknowledge the need to re assure a man of their undying love.

Paul paused to let the gravity of his word sink in. It was obvious that these points were just some of Jennifer’s short comings. In reality they were not failures in themselves, just the short comings of a woman who was blindsided by her quest for the idea of the sort of man she felt was her ideal man as against the reality of the imperfection of a real man of substance and depth.

There was a battle of wills between Paul and his mother and between his father and his wife. How this story was going to end was only known to God who is the author and finisher of our faith.