The Thing I Hated About My Body Saved My Life

Eyo Jedidiah Precious
@preciouseyo450605
19 days ago

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‎He does know our perfect fitting…
‎And I kid you not.
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‎Growing up, I had always been so scared of whîps.
‎I never liked them. Ooo… those days were pure nightmares — especially general floggîngs in school, because though I wasn’t the most well-behaved, I was rarely flógged unless it was general punishment.
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‎Moments of general punishment had to be my worst experience. Somehow, I would always be the last to be flógged, probably because I was super scared of whîps.
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‎One of such unique moments was in Primary 5.
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‎We had just left the assembly ground. Our pregnant teacher was running late, so we all decided to do the usual, talk to one or two while awaiting her arrival.
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‎She finally arrived. We greeted her, but she was really moody… well, that wasn’t supposed to be our business, right?
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‎So we continued.
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‎After a few minutes, we heard the most dreaded instruction:
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‎ “If you hear your name,
‎Come outside.”
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‎Ahhh… We all wondered what was going on. It wasn’t even up to an hour since we returned from the assembly ground, and it was too early for this.
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‎Everyone’s name was mentioned — down to mine, and even the class monitor (as popularly called then).
‎And we all went down.
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‎Then we realized something…
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‎We had been betrayed.
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‎Everyone’s knees were touching the ground except the assistant class monitor.
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‎The teacher had come in, instructed Miriam to draft out the names of noisemakers — and Miriam told no one. She just sat and wrote everyone’s name.
‎Even the quietest student in class, whose lips barely moved, was listed.
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‎The whîpping began.
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‎I couldn’t pinpoint what was really happening, whether it was pregnancy hormones or a quarrel with her husband, because the heat wasn’t just because we were making noise.
‎The intensity she used to whîp was not normal, especially for a heavily pregnant woman.
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‎Trust me to keep shifting backwards whenever it looked like it was my turn, until there was nowhere left to shift to.
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‎The first whîp that caressed my palm was a jolt back to life.
‎The second was worse.
‎Then the third, fourth, and fifth.
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‎After what seemed like forever, no one was smiling — not even the strong boys in class.
‎She flógged everyone so much that their palms tore and blóod flowed.
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‎Back then, they all considered me the weakest — the one who would always end up with wounds that never healed for months whenever I joined any kind of children’s play.
‎A mummy’s baby who could never fend for herself… well, I’m still her baby, and I’d never stop being that 😁
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‎But something else topped the list…
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‎They said I had a hard palm that wasn’t supposed to be found in a girl, because every girl’s palm should be soft to show her feminine traits… bla bla bla.
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‎Sadly, I also hated my palm texture and how fragile and vulnerable I was then, as little as a playful push could get me bruised and fall.
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‎Well…
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‎Guess who didn’t have any tear after that vigorous whipping?
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‎That time, I wondered why…
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‎But thinking about it now,
‎God knew how much I would dislike whîps.
‎He knew I was going to be referred to as a weakling.
‎He knew how sensitive I could be to falls.
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‎And He deemed it fit to give me a suitable palm texture — to preserve my palms from all forms of whîps.
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‎Sometimes, what we tag as unfortunate happenings, or casual body traits that don’t sit well with society, are just another form of God’s protection we’ve overlooked time and time again.
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‎Sometimes, what society finds repelling in us is what God uses to distinguish us.
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‎Imagine a man who had two fingers severèd by a wild domesticated dog and somehow landed in the custody of ritualîsts, with orders to bring in a fellow with complete body parts to be used…
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‎And eventually, he gets freed after they discover he’s “incomplete” by their standards.
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‎Do you think after that experience he’d be bothered whenever society calls him incomplete?
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‎We mostly don’t realize that sometimes our unplanned, natural “shortcomings” are blessings in disguise.

#Nirclestories
#Dpoeticstoryteller
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