From a young age, Omotola* (32) anticipated growing up to make money to care for her struggling parents. However, her parents passed away before she could actualise her dreams, and Omotola can’t help feeling like she failed them.
As told to Boluwatife
Image by Freepik AI
“Mummy, I’ll buy you a car when I grow up.” According to my parents, that was my favourite catchphrase as a child. It was my go-to whenever they caught me causing trouble and trying to avoid a beating.
I may have said those words playfully at first, but they became more than mere words as I grew older.
You know the expression “to be as poor as a church rat”? That was my family’s reality. We weren’t broke. To be broke means you don’t have money right now, but you had it at a point in time. We didn’t. We were simply poor.
My dad was a welder, and my mum worked as a cleaner— the type who walked around university hostels shouting, “Any work?” But even joining their small incomes together didn’t do much to make our lives easy. We lived in a one-room apartment separated by a curtain so my parents could sleep in the “bedroom” area while the four of us kids found sleeping positions on the floor.
The best spot was the one closest to the door, as it meant easy access to the breeze that came in through the net covering on a windy night. As the first child and automatic third parent, I often gave up this spot so my younger ones would be more comfortable. Even when we ate together, I learned to take small bites so they’d eat more.
Sacrificing small comforts for my siblings was something I learned from my parents. Even with how tough things were, I could see the lengths they went to make sure we all went to school and didn’t go hungry.
I remember when my secondary school gave us a week’s deadline to pay our WAEC fees or risk not being part of those who’d write the exams. I knew there was no money and didn’t bother telling my parents, but my mum noticed my sad expression and made sure I told her the problem. When I did, she just told me not to worry.
That weekend, my mum washed so many clothes that her hands blistered. She just asked me to rub ori (shea butter) on them, and off she went to look for more people to give her dirty clothes to wash. My dad also went to everyone he knew asking to borrow money. I eventually paid that WAEC fee with plenty of time to spare.
That’s just one example of how much my parents were willing to sacrifice for their children. What about the time my mum carried my sick sister on her back and screamed in front of the teaching hospital after they initially didn’t want to admit her because there was “no bed space”? My mum knew she had no money for a private hospital and also knew that my sister would die if no one attended to her. So, she stood there and screamed till a doctor came out to treat my sister.
Or is it the period when my dad started helping clear soakaways on our street so he could make extra cash to buy me the medical kit I needed for nursing school in 2010?
Honestly, my parents sacrificed a lot. All their lives, they gave of themselves— not just to me or my siblings but to people around us, too. For poor people, they were really the most generous people ever.
So, yes, my “I’ll buy you a car” catchphrase became more than words as I began to see and appreciate all their sacrifice. It became a promise. My parents just had to reap the fruits of their labour. My grand plan was to finish school, make money, build a house and put them there. They’d never have to struggle again.
But life has a way of spoiling plans.
My dad suffered a stroke and passed away two weeks after I graduated in 2013. I felt like there was a giant hand inside my chest that was squeezing all the blood from my heart. I wanted to die. I couldn’t break down outwardly because of my mum and siblings, but I kept asking myself questions. Why was life so unfair to good people? Couldn’t my dad have waited a bit?
Most of all, I felt like I’d failed him. I had promised to take care of him and repay his sacrifices, but I wasn’t able to do either, and now he was gone forever.
I tried to console myself that I could still provide for my mum and make her proud. She became my new focus, my new driving force to make money so I could spoil her.
I got my first nursing job in 2014 and started sending my mum ₦5k monthly out of my ₦25k salary. I desperately wanted to send more, but the ₦20k left hardly covered my transportation and feeding. I was living from hand to mouth, but I made sure I sent something home.
Things started to look up in 2016. After squatting with a friend for so long, I got a new job that paid ₦80k and could finally afford to rent my own apartment. The plan was to move in with my mum. She always complained about her troublesome neighbours, and I wanted her away from their wahala.
But my mum fell ill shortly after she moved in with me. Family members said it was “ofa” — a spiritual attack and warned me not to give her an injection or she’d die. We went from one prayer house to the other and got different agbo (concoctions) for her, but she didn’t get better. I even secretly treated her with normal medicine against people’s advice, but that didn’t work either. She passed away in 2017.
I was numb for weeks after my mum died. I couldn’t think or feel anything. I don’t remember if I even cried. When it finally registered in my head that she was gone, it was like I’d lost two things: my mum and my purpose.
All my life’s decisions up until that point had been towards making enough money to make my parents proud of me and never have to struggle again. With them gone, what was I working for?
It took me years to get out of that headspace and find purpose again. I have children now, and they motivate me to work hard. But I can’t help feeling like I failed my parents.
Those people sacrificed so much for me, and I never got to repay them. They suffered their whole lives without a moment of rest. I was supposed to give them that rest, but I couldn’t. I know it’s not my fault that they died, but it doesn’t make it better. I’ll never get the chance to appreciate them like they deserve, and it haunts me.
*Name has been changed for anonymity.
NEXT READ: My Grandkids Are My Second Shot at Parenting the Right Way
