My Grandmother likes to wear skirts
“My Grandmother likes to wear skirts. She don’t know what she can do.
Her time says it’s Six o’clock. We are ready to comb our hair; we are ready to brush our teeth. St… jk, jk” — Nigerian Rhyme (well, most of it)
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My Grandmother likes to wear skirts.
She had a pair of shoes that went with each skirt she wore, no matter the color.
The entire village nicknamed her “madam koinkoin”
But my grandmother paid no attention to them.
On Mondays, On Fridays.
In the mornings, in the evenings.
To church, to the market.
It didn’t matter.
Wherever my grandmother went, her skirts danced along.
Nobody knew why but for me.
Grandmother had told me one day, as she pointed at the pictures of my grandfather in the family album.
She said he worked with the whites.
His boss was a kind woman who feared the Lord.
From time to time, his boss would send gifts to her through my grandfather, skirts.
But she would refuse to touch them because she hated the fact that her husband served a woman.
It was not as if she hated it, exactly.
It was just that people taunted her.
They said she was married to a fellow woman because a real man would never serve a woman.
That it was a white woman that he served made it an even greater abomination.
And so, not only would she refuse to touch the gifts, she would nag, and nag, and nag.
One day, my grandfather had enough.
He resigned from his job, even though it paid him well and provided more than enough for the family.
My grandmother was pregnant with my mother, and he didn’t want to see her nag in her current position.
So he gave up one thing for another.
After quitting his job, Grandpa went back to his old job, palm wine tapping.
On the second day, after he started tapping wine again, he fell from a palm tree and died.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter again what job he did or who bossed him.
The moment she pulled off her mourning dress, my grandmother wore skirts.
It has been 37 years, but my grandmother has worn a skirt every day of her life since then.
My grandmother likes to wear skirts.
It’s a reminder of what really matters and how people’s opinions can end a man if you let it.
