For the longest time I never knew what home was. When you grow up like I did, it gets confusing. My parents were separated for as long as I can remember, and as a result I was neither here nor there.
On the good days, they'd be together for at most a year. When it rained I'd rough it with my mum and during the storms I'd be with
my dad.
On the days it rained I was with my mum who carried the burden on her head and tried so hard to do better and be better but it rained and the roads were slippery, the skies were clouded.
When it stormed it was off to my dad who worked or just partied and left me in the care of a stranger who was more family than my own father. But stranger brought danger and like a thief in the night, he took what was never his. I was just 8 but he was more family than family, that wasn't home.
The scariest parts were the floods, they signalled the days of living with an aunt that would much rather take in a stray dog than her own nieces and nephews.
So when they asked what home was I'd more often than not say, home was wherever I could lay my head and close my eyes, home was in a human that gave me so much love that cuddled woes away, home was the bed I laid on where I didn't have to shut my eyes tight enough that I wouldn't watch as the stranger took what wasn't his. Home was where I could without fear, where I can find peace. I haven't found my home yet - maybe someday I will but today, home is in the hands of my mother.
By Adeyinka Oluwademilade
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