My name is Chibuzo Okafor.
I am twenty-nine years old now, but every time I begin this story, my heart returns to the small, frightened boy I once was—the boy who was only five when life first showed him its cruel teeth. I am telling you this not because I enjoy remembering, but because some memories refuse to die unless they are spoken.
I was born in Ajegunle, Lagos, to my mother, Ngozi Okafor—a woman whose love felt like safety itself. When I close my eyes, I still see her clearly: her wrapper always neatly tied, her voice soft even when she was tired, her hands warm when she touched my head. To me, my mother was the whole world. I didn't know then that a world could collapse in one day.
That day came quietly.
No thunder. No warning. Just my mother lying on a thin hospital bed, breathing like every breath was a struggle she might lose. I sat on a wooden bench beside her, my legs too short to touch the ground, swinging helplessly. Adults surrounded us—my aunt Ezinne, my uncle Obinna, neighbors whispering prayers—but nobody explained anything to me.
I remember asking my mother,
"Mama, when are we going home?"
She smiled weakly and touched my cheek.
"Soon, my son… be strong."
Those were the last words she ever spoke to me.
That night, my mother died.
I did not understand what death meant. I only knew that she stopped waking up. I shook her body, called her name, cried until my throat burned. Someone pulled me away while I screamed and fought. I remember the smell of candles, the sound of women wailing, the way adults avoided my eyes.
From that moment, I became an orphan—a word too heavy for a five-year-old heart.
The burial came quickly, as burials often do when poverty doesn't allow time for grief. Red earth swallowed my mother's coffin while I stood beside it, holding the edge of my aunt Ezinne's wrapper. I kept expecting my mother to come out and scold everyone for lying her down like that.
She never did.
After the burial, people discussed my future as if I wasn't standing there.
"The boy can't stay alone."
"Let Ezinne take him."
"After all, she is his mother's sister."
That was how my fate was decided—without my voice, without my consent.
Aunt Ezinne Nwoye was my mother's elder sister. She lived in a crowded compound house in Mushin, with her husband Paulinus and their three children—Ifeanyi, Chiamaka, and Uche. On the surface, she looked like a savior. She even cried loudly at the burial, beating her chest and shouting, "Ngozi, why did you leave your son?"
I believed her tears.
I believed her smile when she held my hand and said,
"Chibuzo, come and stay with Aunty. I will take care of you."
I didn't know then that some hands pull you close only to hurt you better.
That first night in her house, reality began to whisper its truth. While her children slept on mattresses, I was given a thin mat on the cold floor near the kitchen. I didn't complain. I was grateful just to be inside. But when I cried softly for my mother, Aunt Ezinne hissed.
"Stop that noise. Crying won't bring her back."
Her words pierced deeper than the darkness around me.
I curled into myself, hugging my knees, whispering my mother's name into the night. That was the first time I understood loneliness. Not the kind that comes from being alone—but the kind that comes from being unwanted.
That night, something inside me broke quietly.
I was five years old.
I didn't know that this was only the beginning.
I didn't know that the woman I called Aunty would become the source of years of pain.
I didn't know that love had left my life and suffering had taken its place.
But as I lay on that cold floor, staring at a ceiling that was not my home, one truth settled into my small heart:
My childhood had ended the day my mother was buried.