Birth

My name is Ayo which literally means 'Joy'.

I never had the memory of how I was born, when I was born and where I was born because I was too (was just few minutes old) small to have a memory. I wish I could narrate the story of my birth, ironically I own the story but only my parents can tell the story.

Would I have blamed them for not seeking my approval before birthing me into this world? Or rather they are solely in the pole position (After God) to decide when to usher me into this world. Still I believe they don't own my destiny they only guided me through my destiny. They did all they could to give me a beautiful beginning and a receptive upbringing just that they couldn't clairvoyantly see that a day like this will surface where I will write a story of my exhaust, a story that will ink the tears my eyes couldn't shed, a story that will soak my papers with the tears my eyes couldn't also hide, a story that will story how my skin endured the bruises and the scars of life, a story that tells how 'BEING STRONG IS HARD'.

Anytime the discuss that surrounds my birth graces the lips of my parents and grandparents they always feel overflowned with joy, they narrate it with the purest joy of the heart.

These question does fulfill my heart but I wanted more than just fulfillment, I wanted comfort, I wanted peace I wanted the things money could buy and the things money couldn't buy, more so this is about me and not about them, they have lived their lives and I'm just about living mine.

So, this intrusiveness and inquisitiveness of mine precipitated me to unravel the memories of the day I was born by viewing and reviewing the pictures just to truly and evidentially evaluate if sincerely the cups of my parents were filled with joy on the day of my birth. At 7, I've known struggles, I've known how to shoulder my strength in all ramifications of life. Life has really dealt with me and my family.

However it's never like I don't trust my parents, but I only trust the years I was featured, the years I could talk about, the years of their 'Today' not the years of their 'Past' cause I was not there.

Undoubtedly, I gathered all the pictures my parents possessed in respect to the memories of how they felt when I was born. Although, they have at umpteenth times orally expressed it to me, just that I was not contented with mere words, at that time words were hackneyed to me. Don't blame me the struggles of this world already gave me a different orientation and definition of 'Trust'.

I was frisky to find soluble answers to the reasons why I am a victim writing this genre of story with an emotional thematic focus and not a story of 'How I became the 'Richest Man in 10 years' or 'How I sheltered thousands of homeless with my Money'.

I believe in work, I believe in the voice of the sweats just that my expectations were not met. After work should come peace and comfort but for me it's a different narrative, after work, its work, work again then work. I am curious to know when 'I will live before I leave'.

Diplomatically and psychologically I kept on evaluating the pictures, I want to know if those smiles were forced to surface on the faces of my parents, I want to know the truthful lies they kept and carpeted beneath my realities.

Whilst glancing through these memories, I discovered that the joy in the heart of my parents and families knows no bound with an electrifying momentum because the pregnancy scan seems to prove them wrong that time after having two girls as my elder sisters where the pregnancy scan result in two different occasions portrayed a male child, they confessed that they had lost hope in the analogy of the pregnancy scan after the scan before my birth indicated that it will be a male child.

Albeit, my parents did not discriminate in respect to the gender of a child just that they wanted a boy before a girl or a boy after a girl so as to make the girl comfortable and safe amidst threatens or bullying from boys.

Those days this was the menace the community was battling with.

A particular picture stole the footage of where my father was husbandly petting and cajoling my mother, although the picture wasn't meant for them they only appeared at the background.

With everything I garnered, I was able to sum up my review that they were happy having me but they wished they have more to give me than birthing me into this world, they wished they celebrate my arrival with beautiful colours so as to leave the mark of a refulgent memory.

As I grow up, with the gestures they wear they tend to refute holding themselves responsible for my struggles, but no matter how hard they try I can see it in their eyes, I can see it in their surreal 'Happy smiles', my parents can hide the biggest scars.

As a little child I grew up painting the future that I want, every beautiful mansion that I see, every bunch of money, beautiful cars are always imaginarily claimed by me.

As a little child all i wanted was a good life even though at that present time I dine on crumbs and slay on my tacked chevrons only on festive days.

During this decade, 'Education is the key to a better life', these words were the most popular chorus on the lips of everyone.

The milieu of my family homes a place congregated and populated by struggling fathers and mothers, a ghetto kind of a place, the downtown side of the west.

Although these respective fosters, off siders, gaffers and parents contained and projected interest in education in which majority also got engaged in menial jobs all in the cause of ensuring that their wards get concrete education so as not to wail in abject lifestyle like they found themselves.

My parents were no different, I remembered my mom working as a sweeper for the only petrol station in our rurality back then.

The competitiveness amongst parents is one thing to cherish and celebrate not because they all were jealous of each other but because their cause of jealousy was to build a better community. Parents prefer going to bed with an empty stomach than to have their kids at home not going to school.

My parents were heroes without capes, looking at their income then I wonder how they clothed us with silks and fabrics from the popular 'Boskona from Kantagora' market, and still afford to pay our tuition fees at school, remember I have got two elder sister and a younger one.

Honestly, I know what 'Balance Diet' means because I was taught in school but I don't know what it practically means because I never had one.

At age 8, i joined my dad in doing menial jobs (even though he was a professional farmer cum factory security guard) where I assume work after school as a laborer although at some times I was not going to school because my parents couldn't afford my school fees where I gave the privilege to my sisters to resume school with the little we gathered. My mother almost cried her eyes out on the first day my father took me to work knowing that I was just 8 but I am the only son of the family what choice do I have? I couldn't pretend that I also never cried but only if I could rewrite my destiny. With tears I mumbled to God; Please bless my father and my mother I am not happy. 'Being Strong Is Hard'.