It has been a busy couple of years since we came back home and I am officially a teenager. We are now 4 siblings and I couldn’t be happier to have my youngest brother to care for as if he was my own, despite all the help we have around the house. I have always loved kids and enjoyed very much playing mummy, from a very young age. As I just said, a lot has indeed happened and not often nice things, some illness, some loss of family members and the most striking for me was the death of my grandfather on my mum’s side, his passing is so present in my mind as the same week of his passing my father had a stroke, I don’t have the exact dates but I remember my father running up and down to handle the details of the burial and other details around my grandpa’s passing. This was a very sad and stressful time for my mother, but my dad was a hands on deck type of person, so he was taking care of a lot, I also think that my brother was very young, I don’t know how many months exactly anymore, so all this was truly too much for the household. 

Back to my stressed father stroking at 45, I think that I immediately felt that this was the beginning of the end of life as I knew it, although at this point, he was not in such bad shape, but a stroke can’t be that harmless I guess. I think that he got hospitalized a bit and then came back home, did not recover, and I only realized a couple of years ago how his recovery was close to impossible, but I had no idea at the time. This time is when I learnt to pray and supplicate to God, it was so lonely and terrifying, I would not be getting ahead of myself saying that where I come from we are a people of taboos and tons of unspoken truths. This was the beginning of months of in and out of the hospital for my father, until there was no more hospital for him and he quickly became bed bound and mute. 

The stroke had paralyzed his whole left side, so walking and talking degraded pretty quickly that beginning of 1997, we went from walking him to the bathroom, which was outside of the house, to helping him go to the toilet straight from the bed. He soon also came to be unable to eat, so i think we were feeding him mainly milk or water. And at some point, this man collected his strength and spoke with me, 12 year old me, and asked to help my mother raise my siblings once he was gone. I was pretty mature for my age, which made this make sense but also made me realize that this was too  much to ask the child that I was, but he also understood that I was a very responsible girl already. I might have cried over it and thought that I had dreamt it, maybe, because the poor man could no longer speak, but he did indeed speak to me. I did spent quite some time on his bedside, this would be a good reason why he could gather some strength to talk to me. After that I carried on on praying that God heals him, that he spares him, I begged that God took me instead, as not only did I feel that my father was the only person in the world that cared about me,  I was afraid I would I have been left alone once he would be gone, but also he was useful to and appreciated by way more people than I could ever be. I pleaded, begged, supplicated some more for so many days and so many nights and eventually dissociated from that and got my shit together about the whole situation.

What followed was one of the most traumatizing events of my life, I had dismissed it for so long but came to accept that this was not right nor fair that I had to live this experience at such a young age. I don’t want to be overly suspenseful nor drag the mistery more than necessary, the thing that broke my younger self the most, or at least is part of my top 3 events/things is having to help my father on his death bed to go to the toilet, especially knowing that the house was full of grown ups that could have done that, I still cant understand why my mother let me go through this experience, not just her, but my aunties did let it be so as well, so were the rest of the adults around. My father was, still is, my HERO, seeing him reduced to so little after spending so many weeks/months bed ridden would break my heart every single day, having to help him pee and clean him up, this definitely broke my soul into its depth, and I have only brought that thought and idea to light at the beginning of 2025. 

Before that, I carried shame over the fact that I always complained, not out loud but internally, whenever I was asked to go take care of him, then it was regret as those were the last moments and little chances left to spend time with him, then there was probably guilt, because if i cant help, what am I even on earth. I am shaking while writing this down, not from the trauma, but not only does this feel like I am pointing fingers and exposing my family but also because I always felt like it was totally normal for a girl to do what needs to be done for her family in African households, it does not matter how old she is as long as she can stand on her 2 own feet. So, I felt that my case was business as usual but it is not, I guess, because I still feel resentment for the adults that “let” me live this experience and hated myself so long for not embracing it. So, I am facing it to heal from it and hoping strongly to forgive myself and others for not protecting my innocence a little longer, not seing my pain or even considering how aware I was of the loos to come of my father and for no one ever asking how I was feeling some of the most difficult months of my whole life. 

I wanna go back to those moments and tell my father, ok I will do what you say I should do, because I did, tell my younger self to stay soft on the inside, not just in appearances, because she is strong and will conquer all the challenges and obstacles thrown at her, again and again and again and again. It will be often very isolating and she will feel very unrelatable but she will come to accept that no mountain too high to climb for her will be handed to her. I would love to tell her to let go earlier because this pain and anger will be part of her being for almost 30 years, but she will take knowledge of it and will be able to let it go. I would also tell her not to be so strict with others, they have different paths and purposes in life, therefore not the same sensitivities. I would ask her to be gentle with herself the most, she deserves it and is worthy of love and care, at all times, not only when she is making herself useful. She was never shown that she matters but she does, she does deserve joy, laughter, ease, and happiness, not just anger, sadness and sorrow as she was told.

I would beg of her to not be afraid to love, even though she would lose the person she loved the most so early in her life, give love a real chance, at least once in her life. Tell her that she has the free will to choose better and different, after mistakes, day after day, that each new day is a new chance to be less serious about it all and live life, be in the present, the gift!  I would tell her that her faith should not only be directed to praying for needs, especially those of others, that she can pray for her wants to, the light things, the superficial things, the nice to haves, the big things, anything her heart would ever desire. The mere fact of being here to this day is a miracle, wouldnt it make sense that we embrace life as such, a beautiful opportunity to be awed by the goodness life has to offer after all?