I start to write this story for the greater endearment of knowing my mother; truly knowing my mother, not as the matriarchal protector as most African mothers tend to become or some fictitious invincible figure my childhood mind made her out to be, but, truly... knowing her, as a human being, who has struggled triumphed, laughed cried, lost gained and who still yet again and again rises up to the call of the sun every morning to scratch moist dust for her children to feed.
It has taken so much courage to reach this point, so many lies I had to scratch off but I strongly feel its time I tell this story.
My mother was born in Uwan village in the then Bendel State, Southern-Nigeria, on March the 13th, 1965. Being born into a poor prospective family as the third and last child of her parents' children, life surely had an uncertain feel when her father died at age seven. He was a farmer and a hunter. He later owned cocoa plantations which my step-aunt sold off at his death; leaving my mother and two older siblings to fend for themselves. My uncle was sent through school by a relative after my grandfather died while my aunt assumed the position of my mother's mother as my grandmother was too nonchalant. Being the last child of a family there was the relative tenderness and harshness brought to her life. Tenderness born out of a necessity to be cared for and harshness wrought from a lack of understanding of the rebellion of a fatherless daughter. Going through school for her was tough. She had to sit for her Senior Secondary School Certificate Exam (SSCE) five times owing to bad results which had its numerous, relative reasons.
After getting her Certificate together she entered into a polytechnic and got her OND( Ordinary National Diploma), after which she met my father. My father was a photographer at the time and probably still is. They met before 1992 but got married in 1994.
Around the turn of the century plans were made by both himself and my mother for him to leave for Israel owing — by my speculation —to the precarious Nigerian economic climate and the four children they wanted more for( which later bacame five)
. My mother also decided to pursue a Law degree; this I would say caused a somewhat salient rift; not because he didn't want it but because they slowly became two really different people. Before he left for Israel anyone could suggestively say she played the perfect wife; tried to raise the best children
and cradled her dreams into a nest of uncertainty, but, with my father leaving and with the search for greener pastures not birthing the calculated profits, she had to see reason with her instincts and inklings and tend to what was true and fulfilling for her.
That's where I would say her story really begins.
This is the pilot of the story.
Join me as I explore this narrative of a woman's unending tenacity and doggedness in determining her destiny in contemporary Africa and her childrens', there's so much you'd be surprise to learn.
Sneak peak of what happens next:
