PART 3 — CAN YOU FORGIVE YOUR OWN MOTHER? After everything that happened, someone asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks: “Your mother has asked you for forgiveness. Have you forgiven her?” I didn’t know what to say. Because forgiveness sounds easy when you’re talking about a stranger. But this was my mother. The woman who gave birth to me… The woman I spent years wishing would come back… The woman I once waited for, hoping she would finally choose me. I had tried reaching out. I had sent money. I had shown love to people in her family even though I barely knew them. I kept hoping that one day she would look at me and say: “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” “I should have been your mother.” “I love you.” But instead, I spent years wondering whether I had done something wrong. Maybe that is the deepest wound of being abandoned by a parent. You grow up asking yourself: “Why wasn’t I enough for them to stay?” But with time, I began to understand something. A child’s worth is not determined by whether a parent chooses to love them. I didn’t deserve to be abandoned. I didn’t deserve to grow up questioning whether I was wanted. And I didn’t have to spend the rest of my life carrying the pain. Maybe forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. Maybe forgiveness means finally deciding that what someone did to you will no longer control the rest of your life. So if you were in my position… Would you forgive your mother? Tell me honestly in the comments.
PART 2 — “GO AND SORT IT OUT WITH YOUR FATHER” Even though my stepmother treated me like her own child, there were times when I desperately wanted to speak to my biological mother. I remember one day when I was having problems with my stepmother. I called my mother because I thought, Maybe this is the moment I can finally talk to her. But when I explained what was happening, she simply said: “Princess, please go and sort out your problem with your father. Leave me alone.” Then she hung up. I was devastated. But I still didn’t stop loving her. Years later, I had my first child. I called my mother to tell her that I had given birth. Instead of asking how I was doing, she asked: “When you were in labour, why didn’t you tell me?” I told her I had given birth in July and that she was supposed to come in August. Then she asked: “Who is taking care of you?” I said, “My mother.” She asked, “Who?” I clarified, “My stepmother.” She hung up. That moment broke something inside me. And when I had my second child, the distance remained. The only advice I seemed to get from my biological mother was that if I didn’t behave the way she expected, I would have problems in my marriage. I became so hurt that I went to church and cried before God. I said: “God, what have I done to my mother?” “I haven’t seen her in so long.” “I haven’t done anything against her.” “Why does it feel like she’s cursing me?” But despite everything… I still showed her love. I sent her money. I even sent money to her relatives whom I had never met. During COVID, I was recharging their GOtv. I didn’t know these people personally. But I wanted to love them. I wanted to belong. I wanted to have a relationship with the family I had missed for most of my life. But somehow… They kept rejecting me. And that left me with one painful question: How do you forgive someone who never really gave you the chance to be their child?
PART 1 — MY MOTHER LEFT ME IN THE HOSPITAL When I was born, my mother abandoned me in the hospital. She gave birth to me and simply left. My father was the one who stayed. He tried his best to take care of me, but I was still a baby, and he had to work to survive. My father was an automobile electrician. He would carry me along while he repaired people’s cars because he had nobody to leave me with. Eventually, people began advising him: “You can’t continue like this. Take the baby to the village. Let your mother take care of her.” So my father took me to the village. My grandmother raised me. She loved me, protected me, and took care of me until I was about seven years old. Then my father came back and took me to Port Harcourt. But growing up without a mother wasn’t easy. People would say hurtful things to me. “If your mother walked past you today, would you even recognize her?” “Do you know who your mother is?” Those words hurt more than they probably realized. Because deep down, I wanted what every child wanted. I wanted a mother I could call my own. Then, sometime around 2003, something happened that I will never forget. My mother came to see me. For the first time in my life, I was so happy. I thought maybe this was the beginning of the relationship I had always dreamed about. I thought I had finally found my mother. But I didn’t know that this was only the beginning of another painful chapter…
PART 4 — THE CUP BESIDE MY BED A few nights later, Mother came into my room. She thought I was asleep. Then she pressed a pillow over my face. I felt her hands trembling. But I didn’t fight. I closed my eyes and waited. My lungs began to burn. Then suddenly, Mother was ripped away from me. Grandma stood there. “Have you completely lost your mind?” Mother collapsed into her arms. “I can’t take it anymore,” she sobbed. Grandma held her tightly. “What if he grows up to become just like his father?” I heard every word. I lay completely still. Eventually, their voices faded away. I pulled the blanket over my head and turned toward the wall. I don’t know how long I remained awake. At dawn, Grandma entered carrying a large cup. Steam rose from it. “Mushroom soup,” she said. She placed it beside me. “Drink.” I stared at the cup. I understood. Maybe everyone was tired of waiting. Maybe this was finally the end. I picked it up and drank everything. The bitterness lingered on my tongue. Then I lay down and waited. The pain came quickly. My stomach twisted. Cold spread through my body. My teeth began to chatter. My vision became blurry. Somewhere nearby, I heard Grandma moving around frantically. Then she made a phone call. Soon, an ambulance arrived. Everything became a blur of sirens, hurried footsteps and bright hospital lights. At the hospital, doctors worked quickly. They pumped my stomach. I gagged until my throat felt raw. A young doctor looked from me to Grandma. “What happened?” His voice carried suspicion. With the little strength I had left, I grabbed his sleeve. “It was me.” He leaned closer. “I drank it myself.” He froze. I released his sleeve and sank back onto the bed. I stared at the ceiling. Maybe surviving wasn’t a blessing. Maybe it was a curse. Even death seemed unwilling to take me. Before I closed my eyes, I looked toward Grandma. She stood beside the bed, shoulders hunched, gray hair falling around her face. Then I saw a single tear roll down her cheek. After I was discharged, home felt completely different. The walls were the same. The furniture hadn’t moved. But the entire house felt lifeless. Like a grave. I became quieter than ever. I ate silently. I went to school silently. I worked silently. I tried to become invisible. I didn’t want to take up space. I even began looking after Ethan. “Be good,” I told him. “Don’t make Mom angry.” I wiped crumbs from his mouth. He looked at me strangely. For the first time, I saw something in his eyes that looked like trust.
PART 3 — THE NIGHT SHE FINALLY BROKE The only person who sometimes collected recyclables with me was a boy named Noah. Noah was an orphan who had spent years moving from one temporary home to another. He knew how to survive on almost nothing. One afternoon, after school, I bought him a popsicle. We sat beside the road. Then I asked him a question. “How could someone die and make it look like an accident?” Noah froze. “What?” “I’m serious.” His expression changed immediately. “Stay away from me.” “I’m not asking you to do anything illegal.” “I’m not getting involved.” I stared at him. “I’m just asking how someone could accidentally die without causing too much trouble.” Noah looked horrified and tried to leave. I grabbed his arm. “You ate my popsicle.” He stared at me. “So?” “Then you have to help me.” He groaned and sat back down. “You have parents. Why are you trying to die?” I said nothing. He looked at my bruised arms. “Yeah, they hit you. But they still feed you. And look at you. You’re stronger than me.” His words hurt. I wanted to tell him that having people who weren’t completely cruel made everything more confusing. If Mother had been evil every second, perhaps I could hate her. But she wasn’t. And after learning the truth about my birth, I no longer felt entitled to my anger. Before I could explain, Noah suddenly shouted, “You’re trying to kill your mother!” I stared at him. “When did I say that?” A scream interrupted us. “Someone is trying to hurt Mom!” I turned. My younger brother, Ethan, was running toward us, crying hysterically. One of his shoes was missing. That night, chaos filled our house. Mother came at me with a broom. She hit me again and again. Her eyes were red with fury. But through the pain, I noticed something. She was crying. I’d seen those tears before. I used to believe they were fake. That night, however, I didn’t fight back. I curled up on the cold floor and remained still. Eventually, the broom slipped from Mother’s hand. She walked away and disappeared into her bedroom. A few minutes later, I heard her sobbing behind the door. The sound hurt more than the beating. I covered my face. Something warm ran down my cheek. I thought it was a tear. It was blood mixed with dust. Then Grandma appeared in the doorway. “When your mother was nineteen,” she whispered, “she cried like that too.” I looked up. “She came home one night with torn clothes and bruises.” My breathing stopped. “She had been attacked.” Grandma’s voice trembled. “She tried to get rid of you afterward. She was young, terrified and broken.” I stared at her. “After you were born, I abandoned you too.” My chest tightened. “I thought leaving you somewhere would solve everything.” She lowered her eyes. “But the police found you the next morning.” She explained that they had warned her that abandoning a child was a crime. No one had welcomed me into this world. Not Mother. Not Grandma. Yet somehow, I had survived. Grandma cleaned my wounds. “Don’t hate your mother,” she whispered. “She’s been carrying this pain for a very long time.” I gave a weak laugh. “Grandma, I don’t hate her anymore.” And I meant it. But forgiveness didn’t change one thing. Mother still wanted me gone.
PART 2 — THE BIRTHDAY GIFT Eventually, I passed a restaurant and saw a family celebrating a birthday through the window. They were laughing. The children were smiling. And the woman in the middle looked genuinely happy. I instinctively stepped backward. She reminded me of Mother on her birthday the previous year. Mother had been smiling too. Until she saw me. The moment I walked into the room, her smile disappeared. That memory reminded me of something from school. Our teacher once asked us to write an essay called “My Mother.” I wrote exactly what I believed. I described Mother as a heartless villain. My teacher pulled me aside and lectured me for almost an hour. But one thing she said stayed with me. “No mother can ever stop loving her child.” I believed her. So I began saving every coin I earned from collecting bottles and recyclable materials. When Mother’s birthday came, I used all my savings to buy her a cake. I didn’t want anything complicated. I just wanted the same hug she gave my brother, Ethan. Instead, she looked at me as though I had brought something disgusting into her home. I stood there holding the cake, completely humiliated. Anger took control. Later, when nobody was watching, I caught two frogs from the garden and hid them inside the cake. I’ll never forget Mother’s scream when they jumped out. At the time, I laughed. I thought she deserved it. I thought she was a terrible mother. But now I understood things differently. Maybe I was the terrible thing. Maybe my existence was the wound she could never escape. Standing outside that restaurant, watching the happy family through the glass, I made a decision. This year, I would give Mother the birthday present she had always wanted. Freedom. I would die. Strangely, once I decided that, I felt calm. I began thinking about how to disappear without causing anyone trouble. I didn’t want anyone cleaning up after me. I didn’t want anyone blamed. I just wanted everything to stop. But before I could carry out my plan, a police officer found me wandering alone and brought me home. Mother opened the door. I kept my eyes on the floor. “Why didn’t you just die wherever you were?” I almost answered. Instead, I swallowed my anger. Then I quietly asked, “If I really died, would you be sad?” She didn’t hesitate. “If you have the courage, then do it.” She turned away. “I’d celebrate.” Then she entered my siblings’ room and closed the door. I remained alone in the living room. After several minutes, I wiped my face. A bitter laugh escaped me. Mother would definitely love her birthday present.
PART 1 — THE CHILD SHE WISHED WOULD DISAPPEAR For as long as I could remember, I had always known one painful truth: My mother hated me. When I was four, she tried to make me swallow sleeping tablets. Two years later, she tried something even more dangerous. Yet somehow, I survived. Apparently, I was much harder to get rid of than she had expected. By the time I was eight, I had stopped being afraid of her. If she refused to feed me, I would knock everything off the table so nobody else could eat either. If she beat me until I could barely stand, I would wait for my chance and attack her favorite son. That was our life. Mother against me. Me against Mother. Neither of us willing to surrender. Then, when I turned thirteen, everything changed. My youngest sister was born. One afternoon, I was awkwardly trying to help change the baby’s diaper when Mother suddenly grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. Her face frightened me. There was anger in her eyes. But there was something else too. Fear. And disgust. “What were you doing to my daughter?” I stared at her. “I wasn’t doing anything.” She stepped closer. “You’re exactly like your father.” My heart stopped. “Why couldn’t you have died with that monster?” For the first time, I didn’t fight back. I just stood there. Her words hurt more than any beating. Maybe she was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have survived. Maybe my very existence was a mistake. That evening, I limped all the way to Grandma’s house. It was already dark when I arrived. Grandma took one look at my bruised face and immediately brought out her old first-aid kit. She didn’t ask questions. She simply cleaned my wounds like she’d done countless times before. Then she placed a plate of pasta in front of me. Normally, I would have eaten while planning how to get revenge on Mother the next day. But that night, I couldn’t touch the food. “Grandma…” She looked at me. “I’m not really Dad’s son, am I?” Silence filled the room. She didn’t answer. But I saw something flicker across her face. Rejection. Discomfort. She suddenly stood and began wiping the table repeatedly, especially the spot where my bloody bandages had been. That’s when I understood. My blood was something they wanted to forget. I wasn’t simply the child of a dead father. I was the son of the man everyone despised. A rapist. Suddenly, Mother’s hatred seemed to make sense. My stomach turned. I ran outside. The cold air burned against my wounds. For years, whenever Mother hurt me, I told myself that someday I’d make her pay. But now I couldn’t even imagine looking her in the eyes. I didn’t stay at Grandma’s. She didn’t come after me. So I kept walking. I had nowhere else to go.
