I: A House Without Her
I have no memory of my mother.
No face to recall. No voice to comfort me. Everything I know about her was stitched together from my father's stories and the memories the villagers shared whenever they saw me.
“You have her eyes,” one elderly woman would say. Others insisted I carried her nose, her smile or her quiet strength. I treasured those words because they were all I had of her.
She died a few weeks after I was born.
Whenever I asked Father why God allowed it, he never answered with anger. He would rest a hand on my shoulder and say, “Life happens, Akanni. We do not always understand God's ways, but we can trust Him through every season.”
As a boy, I believed him because I believed everything my father said. Our compound stood at the edge of the village where the footpaths from two neighbouring communities met. It was one of the largest compounds around, with a wide farmland behind it and an old palm tree standing proudly in the middle of our compound.
That palm tree became my father's refuge. Every evening, after supper and family devotion, we sat beneath its shade while the night wind blew gently.
Sometimes my father sang. It was a song he had written for my mother. When the song ended, he would stare into the distance for a long while before speaking.
“Your mother was my friend before she became my wife,” he would say softly. “We dreamt of raising you here for a few years before moving to Lagos after I completed my teacher-training programme.”
He would smile, though sadness never quite left his eyes. “God had a different plan.”
People visited our compound almost every day. Some came with baskets of fruit. Others brought freshly cooked meals or handwoven clothes for Father and me. As a child, I thought it was just love but by the time I turned three, I began to notice something else.
The women always asked about Father. “Has he returned from the farm?” “Will he be at church on Sunday?” “Has he eaten?”
I answered happily, unaware that many of them hoped to become more than visitors. They wanted the title: My father's wife.
Father noticed their intentions long before I did. He treated every woman with kindness but kept his distance. His life revolved around two things. His faith. And me.
Looking back now, I realize he spent those years trying to give me the kind of love that asks for nothing in return. I only wish I had recognised it before I began searching for love everywhere else but from the source.
II: Borrowed Love
As I grew older, I began to recognise the women who visited our compound.
Some were widows. Others had never married.
They came with bowls of soup, baskets of fruit or little gifts for father and me.
“Akanni, ṣé dáadáa lo wà?” they would ask.
“I am well,” I would answer, reaching eagerly for the gifts they brought.
Then came the question that always followed. “And your father?” I thought they loved me. Only later did I realise I was the path they hoped would lead them to him.
One afternoon, two women arrived at the same time. One had brought food; the other had come to collect the plate she had left behind days earlier. Before long, their greetings gave way to accusations, and accusations became a fight in the middle of our compound.
Father separated them quietly. That evening, he stopped accepting personal gifts from women in the village. That decision didn't go well with me. By the time I was five, I had discovered that people gave more when they believed you favoured them.
On Sundays after service while Father attended elder meetings, the women surrounded me. One would straighten my clothes. Another would slip roasted groundnuts into my hands. Someone else would promise to sew me new clothes for Christmas.
I enjoyed every moment. Soon, I began telling harmless lies. “If you come tomorrow,” I whispered to one woman, “Father may be at home.”
To another I said, “He spoke well of you yesterday.” The gifts became bigger. Without knowing it, I had turned affection into a game.
Christmas was always special. It was both my birthday and the celebration of Christ's birth. Father's compound filled with laughter, food and visitors. Looking back, I realise many came to celebrate me. Others came hoping to win Father's love.
I rewarded the women who brought the finest gifts with louder praise. Father noticed. That evening, after devotion beneath the palm tree, he called me to sit beside him.
“Akanni,” he said gently, “love is never something we use to get what we want.”
I looked down at my feet.
“When people become tools for our gain, we stop seeing them the way God sees them.” His words settled in my heart but found no room to grow.
Around the same time, I became close to a group of boys whose lives were very different from mine.
They roamed the village freely, boasting about girls, mocking discipline and measuring manhood by how much trouble they could cause.
I admired them. Their approval became another kind of attention I wanted. One afternoon, Father found us by the stream talking about girls. He said nothing until we returned home.
That night he looked at me for a long time before speaking. “The company you keep today will shape the man you become tomorrow.” There was sadness in his voice, not anger.
A few weeks later, he made a decision that broke my heart. At ten years old, I was sent to an all-boys missionary boarding school. As the lorry carried me away from the village, I watched Father grow smaller in the distance.
I thought he was sending me away because he no longer understood me. Years later, I realised he was trying to save the son he still believed I could become.
III: The First Consequence
Boarding school changed my routine, but it did not change my heart. Our days began before sunrise with prayers and devotion. We attended classes, worked on the school farm, studied in the evenings and slept only after the hostel lights went out.
The rules were strict, and our housemaster tolerated neither laziness nor vulgar talk. Outwardly, I became disciplined. Inwardly, I remained the boy who mistook attention for love.
Whenever I returned to the village during the holidays, Father welcomed me with his usual embrace and distant stares, silently hoping the time off had changed my outlook about what love was.
Nothing had changed in our evening routine. We still sat beneath the old palm tree after devotion.
One evening, he read from the Bible before closing it gently. “My son, do not forsake your father's instruction, and do not reject your mother's teaching. Proverbs 1:8.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “You never knew your mother,” he said quietly, “but if she were here, she would tell you exactly what I have told you all these years: character will take you farther than charm.”
I smiled politely. I heard his words, but they never reached my heart. That same holiday, I met Amoke again. Her mother was among the women who wanted my father's attention but not for the wrong reason. Her husband left her for a chief's daughter in the next town.
We had played together as children before I left for school. She had grown into a calm and thoughtful young woman, known throughout the village for helping the local nurse care for sick children and elderly neighbours. She hoped to attend nursing school. “I want to spend my life giving people hope,” she told me one evening as we walked home from church.
I laughed. “You've always wanted to care for everyone.”
“And you've always wanted everyone to notice you,” she replied with a smile.
We both laughed, but her words lingered long after they were spoken. When I returned to school, we began writing letters. She wrote about her dreams, her faith and her entrance examinations. I wrote about how much I missed her.
Looking back, I realise she was building a future.
I was only chasing a feeling.
After my graduation, I returned home, and our friendship quickly became a relationship. One evening, as we sat beneath the mango tree outside her mother's house, I took her hands. “Amoke,” I whispered, “I cannot imagine my life without you.”
She lowered her eyes shyly. “If God wills it,” she said. “I will choose you over and over again.” Her intentions were pure. Mine was selfish. I had allowed desire to outrun commitment. A few weeks later, she came to our compound just after sunrise. Her eyes were red from crying.
“Akanni,” she said softly. “I have missed my monthly flow.” Fear gripped me before responsibility did. She burst into fresh tears as she saw my stance after she broke the news to me. Her sobs attracted my grandmother.
My grandmother stepped outside and immediately sensed that something was wrong. After listening to Amoke, she sat heavily on the wooden bench. “Akanni,” she said, her voice breaking. “Akanni, ìwọ ṣì jẹ́ ọmọ. Báwo ni ọmọ tó ṣì ń jẹ́ àbójútó yóò ṣe tọ́jú ọmọ míì? Akanni, you are still a child. How will a child who is still being cared for take care of another child?”
Father spoke even less. That evening, he did not scold me. He simply sat beneath the palm tree long after the sun had disappeared. His silence carried more pain than words ever could. Amoke's mother asked that our family begin the marriage rites.
Instead, I ran. I couldn't face the shame of impregnating a girl outside of wedlock considering my father's position in the community and church.
The truth is I ran because I didn't have any love to give. I have learnt to always be the center of attention.
I accepted a teaching appointment in another town, convincing myself that distance would somehow lessen the weight of my choices. Months later, a letter found me. Amoke had given birth to a son. She died soon after. I read the letter until the words blurred through my tears.
For the first time, I understood that forgiveness may be free, but the consequences of our choices often remain. And no matter how far I travelled, I could not outrun the first consequence of borrowing love instead of learning to give it.
IV: The Call Back Home
I convinced myself that leaving the village was the same as leaving my past behind. It wasn't. I lied.
Teaching gave me something to do, but it could not quiet my conscience. Then I met Adebanke, another teacher. She was one of the chief's daughters who wanted to settle down. She was kind, and I mistook her kindness for love. Before long, she became pregnant.
History was repeating itself.
When our son was born, her father sent for me. “My daughter will not leave this house until you pay her bride price,” he said firmly. “A child may bind you together, but only honour builds a home. And since she was from the royal clan. She can't go to her husband’s house without her brideprice being paid.”
Having a child outside wedlock was already a stigma for her being in her father's house. She was right. I delayed until the decision was taken from my hands and I received the shock of my life.
One morning, I opened my door and found my son wrapped in a piece of aṣọ òkè. Beside him lay a note: A yọ̀nda rẹ fún ọ—We leave him in your care.
As I lifted him into my arms, my grandmother's words echoed in my heart. Ìwọ ṣì jẹ́ ọmọ. Báwo ni ọmọ tó ṣì ń jẹ́ àbójútó yóò ṣe tọ́jú ọmọ míì? This time, there was no one left to care for me.
I named him Adigun, after my father.
Not long afterwards, I lost my teaching job.
The school board said my conduct was no longer worthy of the example expected from a teacher. I could not argue with them. Adebanke's family had pulled the rug.
To feed my son, I worked wherever I found work—on farms, carrying loads in the market and teaching children in the evenings. Most people avoided me. The same attention I had once enjoyed now plaqued me.
Only Ajani, an old friend from church, where we both taught in the children’s department, stood by me. He and his wife often cared for Adigun while I worked. They never reminded me of my failures. That evening, as we prayed before supper, Ajani read from the Scriptures as his usual practice before leaving for his house.
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
I lowered my head. For years, I had sown selfishness, believing I could escape its harvest. Now, I am living through it. On Adigun's first birthday, a letter arrived from home.
Father was dead.
The letter also told me that my grandmother had died two years earlier. I had not gone home. I had sent money instead, convincing myself it was enough.
It wasn't.
The next morning, I packed my few belongings, carried Adigun on my back and returned to the village I had spent years avoiding.
Much had changed in the village. It had become a town.
The dusty paths were now wider roads. A government school stood where old farmlands had once stretched. The Baptist Church remained at the centre of the town, its freshly painted walls a quiet reminder that change is the only constant thing in life.
When I reached Father's compound, I stopped.
Bushes had swallowed the whole compound. The land uncultivated stretched before me.
The roof sagged. The house that had once welcomed neighbours with songs and laughter now stood in silence.
I set Adigun beneath the old palm tree and began clearing the weeds. With every swing of the cutlass, memories surfaced. And so were the tears that had been bottled up, coming out as a flowing stream.
My mother's absence.
Father's songs.
Grandmother's warnings.
Amoke.
The son I had never known.
I dropped the cutlass and wept. Not because life had been unfair. But because I finally saw the man I had become. As I knelt in the overgrown compound, I whispered the first honest prayer I had prayed in years.
“Lord, if there is still a road back to you... show me the way.”
V: Learning the Rain
The days that followed were quiet. Each morning, before stepping into the farm, I held Adigun close and prayed over him.
“You are a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. The Lord will guide your steps, and you will walk in His ways.” They were Father's words. Only now did I understand their weight.
Slowly, life returned to the old compound. I repaired the leaking roof, rebuilt the broken fence and planted maize and cassava on the land Father had once cultivated. Adigun and I would have to survive.
For the first time in years, I was no longer running from my life. I was rebuilding it.
After one week of clearing and planting. I gathered the courage to enter Father's room. Everything was exactly as he had left it.
On a small wooden table rested a worn leather bag with a note written in his familiar handwriting: For Akanni. Inside were letters.
The first began simply:
“My dear son, if you are reading this, then God has answered my prayer by bringing you home.” My hands trembled.
Father wrote of Amoke. He told me how he had stood beside her mother, prayed with her through childbirth and buried her with dignity after she died, something he shouldn't have done. He wrote of the son I had abandoned and how he had given part of his farmland to Amoke's mother so that neither she nor the child would lack.
He had quietly carried the burden I ran from. The final letter was only a few lines long.
“My son, if you have returned home, do not spend your life looking back in shame. Learn from your mistakes, trust God, and become the father your children will remember with gratitude.”
I wept until I had no tears left. The following morning, I carried Adigun and walked to Amoke's mother's house. She refused to see me. The next day, I returned. And the day after that.
On the fourth morning, she opened the door, after Adigun's incessant cries. I lay flat before her. I held her ankles, tears blurred my eyes. “I cannot undo what I did,” I started sobbing quietly. “I have come only to ask for your forgiveness.”
She looked at me for a long time before speaking. “Your father came every week,” she said quietly. “He never excused your sin, but he never stopped praying that God would change your heart.”
She placed a hand on Adigun's head. Then she looked at me. “I forgave you long ago. I was only waiting for you to come home.”
At that moment, I understood what Father had tried to teach me beneath the old palm tree.
Love does not demand.
Love remains.
That evening, the first rains of the season fell across the village. I stood outside with Adigun in my arms, watching the thirsty earth drink deeply. I remembered the words of the prophet Joel: I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.
The rain did not erase the seasons of drought. It proved they would not last forever. As Adigun laughed and stretched out his hands to catch the falling drops, I smiled.
The cycle would end with me. My son would never have to wonder whether he was loved. And as the rain fell upon our home, I knew that God had been calling me back all along. This time, I had finally answered.