I was born in a family where I met only my father and a
matronly looking young lady who served as both the cook and the cleaner. She
lived with us with her child who was my age and I saw her as a lot more than my
father’s employee. My father told me she nursed me at birth because my mother
lost her life trying to birth me, and Ego the maid was with her child and no
husband to tend to them both.
My father employed her to keep the house and she ended up
sharing her child’s naturally given diet with an ever crying me. I was told
that I cried whenever I was not asleep, and father would always say it seemed i
could feel that my mother left me for heaven (heaven I suppose was
the only way he could explain mother’s death to a young me)
We all lived in a comfortable house in the suburbs of Lagos
State. I remember we had nice clothes and always had enough food to eat. After what
I went through I now understand that it was agony of the loneliness of loosing mother
that pushed father to always gamble at the popular ‘Baba Ijebu’ off my close.
Father gambled a lot and had to dispose of most of our comfy
property to settle debts incurred. I do remember the worse came when I was in
standard 6 now known as primary 6 today when the worst came from his gambling
habit. Father had put up our house as collateral for money loaned to make a bet
he felt assured would put us out of our headlong penury. Till date I have no
idea as to the particulars of the ‘miracle’ working bet, but I know it started
the wild spin of disasters to come my way as if not having a mother was not blow
enough for young me to handle.
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