It was October 2013; I remember this month with so much pain in my heart. My family had just lost one of our finest — perhaps the finest of us, to the cold hands of death, aided by the failing Nigerian medical system. She was my aunt, who doubled as a mother. She was clearly the best caretaker I had as a young boy. After her death, all we had was a festival of tears.
In the midst of this festival, I did not break a tear. I watched my mother, cousins, siblings break down into pools of tears, it was too much pain to bear, but I could not cry. As a kid, anytime I took ill, she was the one taking care of me, and when I cried, she would ask me to be strong, and not to cry. She promised that all will be well. She gave me, on many occasions, the reason to live. When I tried to cry after her death, I would hear “Mayowa, be strong, don’t cry”.
Today, almost five years after, I am…
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