Steem4nigeria Accelerator Contest week98 "My Voice, My Story"

This is my true life story, a life experience I couldn't wish for anyone in this world. My upbringing experience was horrible, wicked and inhumane. But GOD grace was sufficient to pull me through.

I come from a place of silence, sacrifice, and survival a little girl born into a poor family, wrapped in hope and uncertainty.

As the story goes, my mom and dad once lived together as husband and wife in Ijebu Ode. Love may have existed, or maybe it was just the struggle binding them. I was still in my mother’s womb just nine months in when my father told her something that would change our lives forever.

He said he was going to Lagos to find a job, to chase a better life for us. He promised to return when things got better. My mother didn’t argue. With all the trust in her heart, she obeyed. She packed her things and went back to the village alone and pregnant.

She gave birth to me, a fragile little girl with no father around. I never saw him growing up. Only photographs. His image was just a memory I never lived.

But when I turned nine, everything changed.

That day still lives in my heart. My mom told me to go and wait for someone my father, she said. My heart pounded as I walked down that dusty village path. Then I saw him a tall man walking toward me. I stopped in my tracks, unsure of who he was. As he came closer, I felt like running away. But then he said, “Victoria, don’t you know your father? It’s me. I’m your father. Are you Victoria?”

“Yes,” I replied softly.

“Come, let’s go to your mom.”

That walk back home felt like a dream. For the first time in my life, I had a dad by my side. He brought me gifts, held my hand, smiled at me like I mattered. I was so happy. But that happiness was short-lived.

Within days, he said he was returning to Lagos. My heart sank again. But then he said I was going with him. I thought it would be all of us my mom, dad, and I, a family once more.

But no. That’s not how my story was written.

He told my mom to find another man to marry. He had moved on. He had married another woman. And just like that, he took me with him and left my mom behind.

When we got to Lagos, I didn’t meet any woman in the house. I asked him, “Why didn’t you bring Mommy with us?”
He smiled faintly and said, “You have another mother now. She’s kind. She will take care of you.”

I was too young to understand betrayal or heartbreak. All I knew was I missed my mother. I longed for her warmth, her voice, her hugs.

A few weeks later, my stepmother arrived from the village. At first, they both pretended to love me. But it was all fake.

After six months, the real pain began.

They started maltreating me. I was never truly loved. When they were going out, they would lock me outside sometimes under the scorching sun, sometimes in the rain. They didn’t care whether I was okay or not.

source

My transport fare to school was ₦450, but my dad would give me only ₦100. I had to trek long distances. They treated me like I wasn’t human called me all sorts of horrible names. Eventually, they even stopped me from going to school. I stayed at home, doing nothing. I watched other children laugh, play, and live the life I wished for but it wasn’t my luck.

I began to question my existence.
“Am I a mistake?” I often asked myself.
I felt unloved, unwanted.

If my mother called, my father would lie, “She’s fine. She’s enjoying life here.”
But I wasn’t. I was just enduring it all in silence.

I lived with them for two painful years. One day, I secretly took my mom’s number from my father’s phone and called her. With tears in my eyes, I told her everything everything they did to me. I begged her, “Please, I want to come back home.”

She called my dad and told him she wanted me back in the village. And finally, I returned.

Back in the village, I attended Holy Child Primary School and completed my Primary School Leaving Certificate. Later, I traveled to Port Harcourt for my secondary education. After completing secondary school, I moved back to Akwa Ibom State.

There, I learned how to sew and design. I trained as a fashion designer for two years and three months. Today, I am a professional fashion designer. I own my own shop, and I even have apprentices working under me.

Yes, today, I am a big madam.

This is my real-life story from tears to triumph, from pain to purpose.

Thank you for reading. And if you are going through a dark season, remember: your story isn’t over yet.

I want to used this opportunity to invite @ruthjoe @okere-blessing @weisser-rabe to this contest