2001, the year I still dread —Finale
By: Mariam Adedoyin Adeyeye
Tags: Childbirth, Grief, Recovery, Infant Mortality, Survivor

2001, the year I still dread —Finale

I woke up few hours later and felt very heavy. I noticed that we had been transferred into the children’s ward of the hospital. My hand had been bandaged and I could see the blood stains at the edges. I looked to my side and saw my mother muttering Alhamdulilah under her breath.

She asked how I was faring and also waved at some people outside the ward - her family members had arrived in their multitudes( you can’t take the numbers away from Omisore family in Ile Ife). Some of my uncles stepped into the ward and were happy that I had woken up, they asked how I was faring and I told them I was fine, I was more concerned about my brother that wasn’t moving beside me. My mother saw the fear in my ears and told me that the doctors were working hard to keep him alive.

My father joined us two days later and was in tears. He was full of thanks for everyone that had come to our rescue, he later coordinated with the FRSC officials and policemen to sort out some of our belongings that could be saved- some were too bloodied to be useful.

The months following this incidence were defining for our family, my brother woke up 3 weeks later and I was the first person he asked after. We all were grateful that the accident hadn’t affected any of his senses, he even recollected that he was eating carrots when the tires burst. The next major step was how to get his skull covered, he had two surgeries but none was successful enough to completely cover the skull.

I remember that the team managing our case had to seek the help of a consultant, Dr Sanders who suggested that we do skin grafting - they later removed large chunk of flesh from the area below my brother’s belly button and it was successful. His whitish skull was no longer showing he still had to wait back in the hospital for the doctors to monitor the healing process.

My hand healed pretty well, the stitches were removed and I was discharged in May, my brother was discharged later in August that year and it was like the first time we laughed in my family.

I didn’t mention that my mother was pregnant at the time of the accident, it was pretty much early so she wasn’t bothered too much about herself. To be honest, she was too stressed out during the whole hospital experience and was also doing hard girl.

After we settled back in Ibadan, she finally started Ante-Natal and everything seemed to be fine with the baby, we looked forward to the arrival of the new born and thought that we were going to be happy again, little did we know that life had its own plan.

My mother fell into labour on the 24th of October 2001, it was 14 days after my brother celebrated his 3rd birthday (we threw a party for him and we called him the one that had returned from the slaughter’s slab). My brother and I waited back home and we already pictured what it would be like to have a new baby.

Then, the news came. Mother had complications during the delivery, she birthed the child but it was too weak to stay with us- the doctors said that mum was too weak and that the foetus might have been affected during the accident. We lost our baby, our darling little brother. We didn’t even get to see him, we heard that my mother insisted on getting him dressed up in the outfit he would have worn on his Aqeeqah and gave him a brand new shawl for my father to wrap him with before the burial.

My mother came back home without our baby and she plunged into another bout of sadness.

I had never seen my mother that unhappy till that incidence, I think that she felt sadder than she did when we had the accident. She withdrew into her shell and wasn’t talking to anyone. She would beckon at my brother and I to stay with her, she would place her head on my laps and squeeze my brother’s hand, she would be in that state and weep for hours.

She became a shadow of herself, she was going through a lot and I lost it, I didn’t understand why anyone had to go through so much pain at the same time. Even my father wasn’t able to penetrate her, he would buy her lots of goodies on his way back from work, he spoiled her silly but my mother was grieving and it was too much for her. She told me that she still heard my dead brother’s cries, she said that she lactated as if there was a baby suckling, I watched her extract breast milk and pour away. I saw her cry while massaging herself with hot water, she bore it all and made me the mother of the house, I grew up faster than I should. I made decisions for us all and most importantly, I hid pains to accommodate every other person’s own, I traded places with my parents and became the one that kept them sane.

I don’t know how I survived that year but I know that it built me. 2001 opened my eyes to how pain and grief can mould us, it changed me and I know.