*sigh* where do I begin?

Waking up to the deafening bangs of firecrackers that dark morning with the notable intermittent outburst of hysterical yelling, it was indeed guess-able that the frenzy out there lasted all night. Who cares about sleep anyway? It was New Year and worth the celebration...

Cooing and stretching out my hands with all my might as though I intended to disconnect them from their sockets, I smiled to the fresh pages of the preface of 2016 enveloped in thoughts and wishful fantasies as to what I hoped to achieve this year. Little did I know.

If man had the power to foresee, 31st night would've been a night of pain and mourning because from all indications I can adequately testify that it was indeed the crossover to "2016: The Most Challenging Period of my Life."

I woke up to an entirely new beginning; a chance, I believed, to right my wrongs, double my hustle and resolute for my undoing. I communed with my inner self and prayed. Being the first act of the year, I intending to start it on a positive note. "Let this year be a remarkable one to the kick start of a successful me" Was my prayer point. But was it really? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it was and still is remarkably dramatic thus my epistle.

Like every other month, January kicked off on a rather busy note and everyone was off to his own business once again. The holiday was over so it was like the "Get back to work you lazy bones!" Kinda scenario. It was activity-filled!

Resuming school wasn't child's play either. The god of tests and assignments had not been appeased for a while so he was really furious. Papers flew everywhere as students made their way to ensure that their entries got to the lecturers. It was really fun. I liked the spirit of school and made sure I excelled immensely at it and being my last session, that was when my efforts where needed the most.

January ended of course and well, the year wasn't really a "new year" anymore. Activities continued as usual and it was work work work all the way until that fateful day, a day I will never forget.

"IK! Come here fast!" Dad yelled from his room. Even in your deepest dream, you can never miss the yelling of that man. It could resurrect the dead if the gates to hades weren't properly closed.

"Siiiirrrr!" I sprang up from my bed, running towards his room like a mad dog.

"biko tie'm ifo eli, agu ne gu'm" (Please put food for me, I'm hungry) He replied.

Dad's appetite and gusto was unrivaled. It was exciting eating in the same table with him because watching him order for more rounds repeatedly would make your jaw drop with food still in it.

However, it was not yet up to 7am and I was baffled as to why he woke up hungry at that time of the day. Well, Mum overheard our conversation and dashed straight to the kitchen to get something done quickly so I instead went to prepare for school.

Fast forward a bit to when I about to go school, I went to Dad and informed him that I was going and he smiled and told me "Na gbo" which means "[Till you] come back." So I hit the road off to school. Little did I know that "till you come back" was "till we meet again...."

About 20 minutes later, I got a call from my brother telling me that Dad was no more. WHAT?! I didn't that hear one ooo, laye ni ooo that language is strange to me. I took the first okada I could find straight home.

On getting home and to Dad's room, I saw my role model; the flesh of my flesh, and the root of my existence lying lifeless in bed. That was the most unbelievable sight of my life. How come? He was never ill.

According to what Mum told me, immediately I left for school, Mum brought the food to him and when he looked at the food, he smiled at her and began thanking God for the family and took a spoonful of the food and forcefully breathed his last right before her eyes. I've never heard of such a thing before all my life.

Hours rolled into days and days into months and it never stopped looking like a previous day event. It really affected me at all fronts. At home I became a loner, and my study life at school dwindled drastically. It had eaten deeply into my mind and it was destroying me really fast.

As though it wasn't enough, my days of grace entering the school without fully paying up my fees had expired. I was now an outsider to my own school. It was really awful and my world had come crashing down so speedily than I could ever imagine. Being born an incurable optimist, it was rare seeing me lose courage but this time was different, I was losing my mind slowly.

"IK please help me buy chloramphenicol." Mum said to me one sunday with a really faint voice.

"Please don't tell me it has started again..." I couldn't hold back those words.

Typhoid had struck again in the worst form and I knew how much she had spent treating it in hospitals all to no avail. Her health was detoriating really fast and it became worrisome. She was already losing strength.

I was maddened with sorrow. I've never been that depressed all my life before. I was at the brink of something I can never wish for my worst enemy and it seemed like all hope was lost.

Dad gone, money drained, school (well, almost a drop out), Mum critically ill, brother ill and autistic, Me (*sighs* I dunno what to say). I wept.

My oh-so-optimistic & never-give-up personality was weary of believing and slowly, slowly, slowly I was giving up on life itself. I looked at my Mum and my brothers with love and pain at the same time. It was a pain we all felt mutually.

I reached out to friends and relatives but then I got a clearer picture of what the words "DISTANT relative" meant. So it was glaring right to my face that "when you're up, your friends know who you are, but when you're down, you know who your friends are."

Lastly I did something I will never forgive myself for: begging.

Exams were approaching really fast and I had already exhausted my energy on some really "sick" menial jobs. Lol, who thought I'd ever dig graves, lift blocks and off load just to make ends meet? If I was told by a fortune teller that it would happen, I'd have immediately cut off contact with such a miscreant. But I did it. I had that experience, and that is why I will always respect people who go to the most extreme edges of tediousness just to earn and feed. I tasted it and felt the pain. I witnessed being paid pennies for building palaces. It was really sad and I felt it in my marrows. The earning weren't half of a tenth of what I needed for my fees but it was something anyways so I used it all to reduce the burden. Pressed by the reality that I may not be allowed into the school during exams, I had no other resort but to come to Nairaland for help.

Soliciting for funds on Nairaland was the worst thing I ever did. Better for me had I just honourably missed my papers or deferred the semester (which eventually did) than to do so admist insults, mockery (direct and indirect) and outright disappointment. I wouldn't like to talk much on that because my tear glands are never at ease whenever I think about it. I requested for the thread to be taken down and it was deleted so I made a solemn promise to myself that I will never make such a silly error ever again; I'd rather commit suicide and end it all than do what I did. It taught me some important lessons in life that I will never forget in a hurry and yes, it all happened for a purpose.


2016 however has given me a new insight. It has shaped my destiny completely. And when I eventually make it in life, I will make sure I try to reach out to those suffering; handicapped and incapacitated, to ensure that I, to some extent, take away the pain and make sure my children never go through what I went through. So that when I am laid down to rest in Mother Earth, people will look on at an example of absolute selflessness.

That was the legacy my Dad left behind. And that, henceforth, has become my ideology.


Cheers.

God is our strength my brother

Av bin followin ur topics 4 a while. Ur a very gud writer reiyvn. Thumbsup

It's well my brother, we all have a story to tell when we become successful

eitsei:
It's well my brother, we all have a story to tell when we become successful

Exactly reiyvn itz a phase we must pass

Tunechi1:
God is our strength my brother

Thanks a lot brother.

lindq:
Av bin followin ur topics 4 a while. Ur a very gud writer reiyvn. Thumbsup

Really? Thanks a lot.

eitsei:
It's well my brother, we all have a story to tell when we become successful

Thanks a lot brother.

Reiyvinn:


Thanks a lot brother.

you are welcome

Cc Lalasticlala ishilove

Cc kaffy4bill
Fortius
MadameU
Ozycy Hafyz23
Koredeeniola
Rhukie
Coolone1
ambient
AlphaHandMaiden
liftedHands
Mumsgirl27
sassyangel1
Helovesme
firsttymum Nggie
Zaynie
Dunnybaby
And every other blessed mamas.
Thank you.

Bump

It'll soon be a thing of history. Though people will only see the glory, they'll never know the story. It's well bro.