THE WEIGHT OF FIRSTBORN SHOULDERS

CHOOSING SIDES

Grief has many faces, but nothing prepared me for the kind that tore through my young heart when my mother passed away. I thought losing her was the greatest wound life could give me, but that was only the beginning. Her death uncovered battles I never imagined I would fight, and suddenly I was not only mourning a mother but also defending a father.

My mother came from a family of eight. She was loved by her siblings, yes, but sometimes love is buried under pride, jealousy, and anger. By the time she passed on, her parents were long gone, and her brothers and sisters had taken up the role of decision-makers in her absence. But instead of holding us close, they turned against the man she had chosen—the man who had been her husband in all but the technicalities of tradition.

You see, in our tradition, if a man never pays a woman’s bride price, he is considered to have no real authority or right over her. It didn’t matter that my father and mother had built a family together, brought children into the world, and fought life’s battles side by side. To my uncles and aunts, the fact that he hadn’t fulfilled that one cultural requirement meant he was not “worthy.” So when she died, they used that as a weapon against him.

The very day we lost her, instead of peace, there was conflict. They demanded that her body be taken straight to the village. My father had no say in the matter; his voice was drowned by the cries of her family. I could see the pain in his eyes, but he remained calm, too broken to fight. It was as though death had not only stolen his wife but had also stripped him of his dignity.

Then came the accusations. Sharp, cruel, and unrelenting. My uncles pointed fingers at him, saying he had killed their sister. They looked at us, her children, with pitying eyes and whispered words that still echo in my mind: *“Your father is dangerous. He killed your mother. If you go back with him to Kunba, he might kill you too.”*

Imagine hearing those words when your heart is already shattered. Imagine being told that the man you love, the only parent you have left, is a murderer. For a moment, confusion filled my heart. I looked at my father and wondered—could it be true? But almost immediately, my spirit rose in defense. No! This man was not a killer. He was a struggler, a fighter, a father who carried the weight of seven mouths on his shoulders every single day. How could such a man destroy the only woman who had ever stood by him?

But my uncles did not stop there. They tried to lure us with promises. They said they had money, that if we stayed with them, they would provide for us, give us a better life, and erase the suffering we had known with our struggling father. They painted him as weak and incapable, as a man unworthy of raising us. They wanted me, the eldest, to choose—to abandon my father in exchange for wealth and security.

Do you know how cruel that decision was? To stand in the middle of grief and be forced to choose between blood and love? Between comfort and loyalty? Between the arms of wealthy uncles who offered us the world and the tired, calloused hands of a father who had nothing but his love to give?

But I chose my father. Without hesitation, without fear, I chose him. Because deep down, I knew money could never replace trust. Gold could never replace love. I had seen this man sweat in the sun, breaking his back just to feed us. I had seen him sacrifice his own comfort for ours. If poverty could not make him abandon us, why would we abandon him for the false promises of others?

My decision, however, came with a heavy price. My uncles turned colder than ice. They restricted my father from seeing us. For one whole week, he was kept away from us, even though we were all mourning the same woman—his wife, our mother. Can you imagine? A family should unite in grief, but ours was divided by suspicion, hatred, and bitterness. Every night I lay awake, listening to the sobs of my siblings, wishing our father was there to hold us, to tell us we were not alone. But he was kept at a distance, treated as though he was the enemy.

That week felt like an eternity. We were trapped between two worlds—one that wanted to erase our father from our lives and another that was too weak to fight for us. I cried until my tears felt dry, my heart heavy with questions. Why must we suffer this way? Why must people who should love us bring us more pain? Why must the death of a mother turn into the persecution of a father?

Yet, in that pain, a strange strength began to rise in me. I realized that life had thrown us into a battlefield, and as the first child, I could not afford to be weak. I told myself: *If my father is rejected, then I will stand by him. If he is accused, then I will defend him. If he is left alone, then I will fight beside him.*

That decision marked me forever. It was the day I truly began to grow up. It was the day I learned that family is not always about blood—it is about loyalty. That love is not proven by words but by sacrifice. And that sometimes, the world will demand that you choose sides, even when your heart is already broken.

Looking back now, I realize that season was one of the darkest of my life. Yet, it was also the beginning of resilience. Because when I chose my father, I chose a path of struggle, yes—but also of hope. I chose to believe that even in poverty, even in pain, love would guide us.

And though I did not know how, I whispered a silent vow to myself: *We will fight together, and one day, we will rise.*

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