Ebere’s Unspoken Longing; Part 1

Content note: This story tells a snippet of the quiet ache of being raised by a single parent.

Picture credit: Pinterest

‎That afternoon a young dad walked past her workplace with his kid boys, singing and reciting the alphabetic letters with them... Then Ebere rushed out, stretching her brown neck out the door to watch them more as she thought to herself “Oh, what a sweet present father...” She was sixteen at the time.

‎‎Hi, Let me walk you through a part of the life story of Ebere... ‎Ebere is a girl of Igbo tribe in Nigeria who was raised by a single mother. She had good, responsible older siblings and they moved out from home when they became adults to “feed home”. This is the desire of most Nigerian young adults—to become independent and assist their family. Ebere as the last-born of the home was expected to be her “mom’s handbag” (that’s her family’s parlance for being the last-born child)— following wherever her mom went but unfortunately, she didn’t get to enjoy it that way—things changed. Her mom occasionally had financial struggles, so during those times, Ebere would be sent to go live with either of her aunties or uncle. And although these relatives didn’t actually maltreat her, Ebere never felt home in their homes. She lived different lives—in different homes, having to constantly adapt to the pain of environment change and lifestyle. Having to constantly adjust to the loss of friends she had made, and start over in new schools again. She did a lot of travelling, (and these were definitely against her will) not the adventurous or vacation kind of travels. ‎In one of her aunty’s, she would hawk goods, in the other’s, she would be given “training” to be a sales person. She would work her little self to stupor and get frustrated! Some times then, she snuck one of her aunty’s phone to send text messages to her mom—venting to, and begging her mom to come “take her home”, then she would delete all the details from the phone. One day, she got caught and was warned to “never try that again!” ‎Ebere loved her grandparents, but never got the chance when she became older, to tell and show them how much she loved them and appreciated their sacrifices, as they died unexpectedly. (Someone’s dying is usually unexpected anyway.) ‎On one occasion in Ebere’s early childhood, her class teacher gave an assignment to the class, and one of the questions was “How old is your father?” Guess what Ebere’s answer was! “One hundred years old.” Now that she thinks about it, it’s pathetic in a funny way because in those days, she used to think that the only people who could die were people of that age, so in the case of her dad, he must have been about a hundred years old..

‎When She Asked ‎One day, out of curiosity Ebere asked her mother “Mommy, what happened to my dad? What killed him?” ‎“He... Uhm... You know he was a traveler right? Oh- you were just four, I don’t think you’ll remember. Your dad traveled to South Africa, he had gone on one of his business trips, if I can remember clearly... During an event with his friends, the tragedy struck–”