The main pillar of love is mutual protection among family members or other loved one. Whoever is close to me, whether a family relation or friend, would testify to the fact that I can go to any length to defend the people around me.
I am a quiet kind of person who could stay indoors for days if I have no concrete business to do outside. But one thing that I noticed is that once someone close to me is disrespected, cheated or abused, I momentarily suspend the gentleman in me. I can lose it all in their defense.
The case that I will never forget happened many years ago when I was staying with my parents. I had finished my secondary education and was awaiting admission into a tertiary institution.
I was inside the house watching a movie when I heard my mother arguing with someone outside. What started like a resolvable misunderstanding snowballed into a loud exchange of words. I went out to check what the problem was.
As I stepped outside, I saw my mum falling backwards to the ground. She was pushed by the landlord who had been arguing with her. I was burning in anger. Someone could disrespect anyone around me and I would easily forgive the person but not when it involved my mum. I wanted to hit the landlord immediately but the people around me held me back. They asked my mum to explain what transpired that led to the fracas. With her hand on her waist while sitting in her fallen position, she narrated what happened.
"I met my goat dead by the roadside. I thought it was a hit from a car that killed it but upon examination, I realized that there was no injury of any kind in its body. It was obvious that the goat died of poison. I was abusing whoever the killer was when the landlord came and told me to stop. Angered that I didn't stop, he pushed me and I fell to the ground."
The landlord was asked to tell his own part of the story. All he could say was that he didn't like it when someone was abusing another person in his house. We later realized that he was the one that poisoned the goat.
The response got me infuriated. I lost it immediately. I didn't know when I walked up to him and gave him repeated punches on his face. People were trying to hold me back but I didn't oblige. I made sure I sent him out of his house that evening. It got to a point that my mum was crying. She wasn't in support of my reaction. She thought that the issue was becoming bigger than she could envisage. But then, touching my mum is capable of bringing out the beast in me. And it did that evening.
"How dare you beat someone's wife and my mother. What happened to reporting her to her husband (my father) or to the police?" I raged on as I locked the landlord out of the entire house.
My father wasn't around and that made it easier for me to have a field day in addressing the issue the way I wanted. My father would have prevented the whole thing if he was at home.
I was only pacified when I made sure that the landlord didn't sleep in his house that night. He went somewhere to spend the night.
The following morning, he came with a team of policemen to get me arrested.
My mother was lamenting that she warned me to leave everything for God but I refused. She was afraid of where the case was heading to.
I was asked to write a statement which I did before being locked up in the cell at the insistence of the landlord. The policeman blamed me that I was wrong for not reporting the case when the landlord assaulted my mum. I told the policemen that the situation called for such a response. I was ready to face the consequences of my actions. I didn't regret my actions.
My father returned later in the day and met me in the police cell. He was angry at me but he intervened in the case to secure my release first.
After spending about 26 hours in the cell, the issue was settled between my dad and the landlord. I was released from detention afterwards.
That was the first and the last time that I had such an experience. Till this moment, I never experienced any situation that would warrant me to have a physical fight with anyone. I forgive and let go of issues easily. However, when it involves my mum, I don't think that I would be able to hold myself back.
