Ok, I go first. One day during family dinner in our late teenage years, our mother began to tell us stories of the crazy funny things we used to say when we were toddlers, ‘’you were very hyperactive kids back then,’’ she said to us. Some of you were moderate with your words while some of you were quite talkative, asking lots and lots of questions.’’ She rolled her eyes across the table talking to one person at a time, reminding each one of their childhood mischief, she finished with everyone then came to me last, I held my breadth as I waited to listen to my dirty little secret past.
”Hey Nathaniel,” she began, ”Do you remember when you used to cry a lot when you saw your dad leaving in the morning, you clung onto his legs so tight and refused to let go, I had to pluck off your hands from his ankles while you were wailing out loudly saying, ”daddy please don’t go, daddy please don’t leave me alone, I have no one else to play with.” ”You cried for almost an hour every morning after he left for work.” after my mom said this, my siblings started jeering me.
There was this time when your dad was gone for many days, and you couldn’t stop bothering me about him, you kept saying, ”mom, when is daddy coming home?” then I would say to you that it’s only a few days, but then you got tired of hearing that and continued asking, ”when is that?” He had been gone for two weeks when I decided to tell you exactly where he was, I didn’t think you were ready to hear it but I told you anyway, I told you that your dad had gone to work in a far away town in a state called Massachusetts. I was surprised to see that you were glad to hear it.
Immediately after telling you this, you ran off to your sister Cindy and told her what you heard from me. She came back running to me to ask whether what you had told her was true, she said, ”Mommy, Nathaniel told me that Daddy has gone to work in a town called My Sweets, and he is going to come back with lots of Chocolate and Candy,” I called you and tried to correct it saying Nathaniel, it’s Massachusetts but you kept saying my sweets. ”Daddy has gone to a town called My Sweets.” You kept saying this to everyone who arrived at our home to visit. When they came to understand what you were trying to tell them, they just couldn’t stop laughing at you.
Well that isn’t my fault, I have nothing to apologize to my mother for, even now I still don’t know how to pronounce that word correctly, whoever named that place he must have been good at creating tongue twisters. I still can’t correctly pronounce that name even to this day.
