MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING WHOLE

THINGS WENT SOUTH

Things went south.

That’s the only way to say it.

The small room behind the church felt safe, yes. The burglar bars on the windows meant Kelvin couldn’t just walk in. The strong lock meant I could sleep without one eye open.

But safety doesn’t fill stomachs.

Safety doesn’t pay school fees.

Safety doesn’t stop a five-year-old from asking questions you don’t have answers for.

The money ran out faster than I expected.

₦30,000 for two months’ rent. ₦5,000 for transport. ₦3,000 for Valeria’s school supplies. The rest went to garri, groundnut, and the occasional cup of rice when I could afford it.

By the third week in the new place, we were back to soaking garri twice a day.

Morning. Evening.

Sometimes with groundnut if I had ₦50 left. Sometimes with just water and a pinch of sugar.

Valeria didn’t complain at first.

She was five. She didn’t know what hunger felt like in her bones yet.

But children notice everything.

One evening, she sat on the mat with her bowl in her lap, stirring the garri slowly with her spoon. She didn’t eat. She just stared at it.

Then she looked up at me and said, “Mummy, is it every time that we will be soaking garri? Cause I am tired of it.”

Her voice was small. Not angry. Just tired.

Tired like an old woman who had carried too much for too long.

I didn’t know what to say.

I couldn’t lie to her.

I couldn’t promise her rice and stew tomorrow when I knew tomorrow would be the same garri.

So I sat beside her and pulled her close.

“Baby, I know you’re tired,” I whispered. “Mummy is tired too. But we are not broken. We are just waiting.”

She didn’t answer. She just ate two spoons and pushed the bowl away.

The next morning, she asked again, but this time it cut deeper.

“Mummy, why don’t you call my uncles to send us money? Or you can send me to grandma and take care of yourself instead.”

She was offering to leave me so I could breathe.

At five years old, she was already trying to carry me.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.

My daughter was hungry.

My daughter was tired.

And I, her mother, had nothing to give her but words and garri.

That afternoon, I called my mother.

My voice shook before I even said hello.

“Mama… I can’t do this alone anymore.”

She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t say “I told you so.”

She just said, “Lilian, bring my granddaughter. She is always welcomed here.”

Something in me cracked open at those words.

Relief. Shame. Grief. All mixed together.

Relief because Valeria wouldn’t have to sleep hungry anymore.

Shame because I couldn’t feed her myself.

Grief because I would miss her laughter in the room. The way she called me Mummy at 6am to show me her drawings. The way she hugged me like I was the safest place in the world.

I told Valeria that night.

“Baby, Grandma said you can stay with her for a while. You’ll eat better there. You’ll sleep better there.”

She looked at me with big eyes.

“But will you come and see me, Mummy?”

“Every Sunday, baby. Every Sunday I will come.”

She nodded slowly, like she was trying to be brave for me.

“Okay, Mummy. But don’t forget me.”

“I could never forget you, Valeria. You are my heart.”

Two days later, I took her to my mother’s house in Diobu.

I didn’t cry in front of her. I waited until the bus pulled away and I was alone on the roadside.

Then I cried. Not loud. Not dramatic.

Just quiet tears that said, “I failed you, baby. I failed you.”

The house felt empty without her.

No small voice asking “Mummy, what’s that?”

No small hands pulling at my wrapper.

No laughter bouncing off the walls.

Just silence. And the sound of my own breathing.

But the silence gave me room to think.

I couldn’t stay idle.

Idle meant hunger. Idle meant going back to Kelvin. Idle meant giving up.

So I went back to job hunting.

This time I was studying too. Mass Communication didn’t stop because life was hard. If anything, it had to go faster.

I had to work and study so I could support my child.

I walked to markets, to shops, to eateries, CV in hand.

Most places said no.

Some places looked at me and said, “You’re too educated for this work.”

As if education was a crime.

One week later, I got a job at a small eatery near Rumuola.

They cooked native food: banga soup, afang, edikang ikong, pounded yam.

The pay was less than my last job. But it was work.

And work meant I wasn’t completely useless.

The job was hard.

We started at 6am. I washed pots, cut vegetables, stirred pots of soup over hot fire until my face was red and my eyes stung with pepper smoke.

We closed at 9pm.

The worst part wasn’t the work.

It was the rule: “Staff are not allowed to eat from what we made. Leftovers are resold to customers.”

So every day, I stood in a room full of hot, steaming food and went home hungry.

I could smell the banga soup on my clothes when I got home, but I couldn’t taste it.

It was such a mean place to work. No form of humanity.

One day, a customer left half a plate of pounded yam and afang.

I was about to scrape it into the waste bucket when the manager stopped me.

“No waste. Put it back. We’ll reheat it for tomorrow.”

I nodded. I didn’t argue.

But inside, I thought: My daughter is at home eating garri, and you’re reheating food you wouldn’t let me taste.

I didn’t last long there.

Two months. That was all I could take.

But in those two months, I saved ₦15,000.

Enough to send Valeria new sandals. Enough to buy her a small birthday cake on her sixth birthday.

It wasn’t much. But it was something.

During that time, my family started calling more often.

“Lilian, please don’t buckle under your pains.”

“Give love another chance.”

“You’re still young. You can’t raise a child alone forever.”

Give love another chance?

I almost laughed.

Love?

That word felt foreign in my mouth.

I told them straight: “That word is not in my dictionary. All men are the same.”

I meant it.

Kelvin had taught me that.

Mr. Patrick had taught me that.

Every man who saw a struggling woman and thought “opportunity” instead of “human being” had taught me that.

I didn’t want love. I wanted peace.

I wanted to wake up without fear.

I wanted Valeria to eat rice without me crying in the kitchen.

I wanted to finish school without choosing between my books and my hunger.

One night, after closing at the eatery, I sat on the bus going home, my feet aching, my hands smelling of pepper and palm oil.

I looked at my reflection in the dark window and didn’t recognize myself.

Who was this woman?

Tired. Thin. Angry. But still standing.

And then I remembered Valeria’s words: “Mummy, don’t forget me.”

I couldn’t forget her. And I couldn’t forget myself either.

So I opened my phone.

I opened Stary Writer.

And I started typing Chapter 15

Because if I couldn’t feed her with food, I would feed her with my story.

If I couldn’t give her a big house yet, I would give her a mother who refused to disappear.

If love wasn’t in my dictionary, then survival would be.

And survival was what I was doing.

One chapter at a time.

One day at a time.

One garri bowl at a time.