Secrets And Confessions

"Don't let those sins pile up. Confess it to the lord today!" The priest said as I sat in the front pew with my family, watching him jump from one place to the other at the altar, teaching about confessing our sins.

All my life I have tried to understand the concept of confessing to a fellow human, sitting in a box just because we feel he's far holier than we are and he's dressed in a special robe. The fact that we don't even get to see the face of who we get to tell our secrets bothers me the most, and for that, I tried to avoid anything that would demand I sit in a dark box to tell a side of me that I'm not proud of to a stranger.

I vowed that if it ever gets to that I'll take my confession to my grave.

Don't get me wrong, all through my twenty-nine years on earth. I was born and bred in a catholic family that barely missed service every Sunday and weekdays too.

In fact, my junior ones served mass, my dad was the church board chairman, and my mum presently was the leader of the women's group in the church. Somehow, it just felt like I was the black sheep of the family. I didn't belong to any unit in church and had no intentions of joining. I always regarded it all as a way one can blackmail himself into believing he or she was holy just for a few hours, and after church, they get back to living their dirty life.

I had reasons for thinking that way. In as much as my family was seen outside as the model family that sometimes the priest used us to make an example to other families.

"Look at Brother Barnabas, his wife and family emulate them!" the priest will always yell to the congregation.

There was still something off about my family.

I've caught Papa on various occasions stealing from the offering box after service, and he had warned me not to say a word of it to anyone, not even Mama.

"Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to survive", Papa had said to me, smiling sheepishly as I barged into him with his hands deep in the offering box that particular day.

"Even though it requires stealing from the offering box" I countered him with a straight face.

"Yes, even stealing from here. Don't worry, you'll understand better when you grow" Papa tapped my shoulder as he tried walking away from me.

I held him back by his hands. "You have to return that money. It does belong to you, Papa, or..."

"Or what?" Papa roared "Or what? You tell the priest or the church board and you think they'll believe you. I'm the chairman of the church board and a model Christian to the congregants. Do you think they'll believe you? Even if they do, I still have my tricks." He raged.

"But Papa, what you're doing is wrong," I said in a soft voice.

"Now listen here, you'll keep this our little secret okay?" He held me tight by my arms and threatened me, his eyes without emotions.

I nodded already scared to my bones.

"Atta girl", he smiled, tapped my cheek, and walked away.

While I was still trying to grasp my encounter with Papa on that very day. A few days later, I had to deal with the discovery that Mama, on the other hand, wasn't the model Christian mother she had painted herself to be.

At first, I thought that the young boys who came to visit her when Papa travelled were her employees at work and they had some work to tidy up at home. That was what she made me and my younger siblings believe at a tender age, but as I got bigger and wiser, I realised that they were not her employees. Rather, she was cheating on Papa with those boys.

When I found out the truth, I confronted her but she had no remorse for doing what she did. In fact, that day was the day she confessed to me that she and Papa were on the verge of divorce and that I wasn't even their biological daughter but adopted.

"Who are you to tell me how to live my life?" She yelled.

"Your daughter! What good example are you teaching me?" I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.

"Daughter?" Mama laughed mockingly "You're adopted and not my biological daughter"

I opened my mouth in disbelief "What?" I asked.

"Oh, are you shocked to find out? Haven't you ever sat to wonder about the age difference between you and your younger siblings? It took us years after marriage to conceive, so while waiting, the priest advised us to adopt a daughter, and that's you. So stick your advice to yourself!" She yelled again as she stood up to leave the room; at the door, she turned and added, "Besides, this marriage is long gone we're just waiting for the right time to announce it to the world" She laughed again before leaving the room.

I can't explain how I felt that day, knowing that just last Sunday, the priest had once again used them as an example to other couples on how to be model Christian couples and families. I can't explain how I felt finding out that I was adopted. It was a whirlwind of emotions for me.

I had left the house that day for my friend's place and never returned till the following day. The pressure from all I knew was overwhelming me, and yet I couldn't find the courage to walk down to the church and sit in a box to confess of my family secrets to a man who might be hiding his secrets, too. A man who believed so much that my family was the holiest. A man who derives joy in praising my family just to make a mockery of other families.

What if he doesn't believe me? What if he does believe my confession, and the aftermath hastens Mama and Papa's divorce? What will happen to my younger ones who still need that parental love to survive?

I thought of all the possible outcomes, and then I grabbed my pen and paper. With all my secrets flashing before me, each word clearer than the other. Maybe It was better to write my truth on a piece of paper, hoping that one day I would find that peace I crave.

Maybe it was better than the thought of being locked in a dark box with a faceless figure in a robe waiting to judge my family's heavy secret.

I stared at the blank sheet of paper, and gradually, I penned my confession. Word for word, secret after secret, of Papa and the offering box and how he had lost all atom of shame and of Mama and her strange young men she brought home, which she blamed Papa for. Of all the perfect masks they wore while outside but dirty on the inside. And of me and the revelation that I was adopted.

And as I wrote, I felt myself being relieved of the burden within me; I felt myself feel lighter than before.

I know no one might get to read this but it feels better confessing to myself than to a silent listener in a box.

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