It’s a Monday morning and I feel tired. Something about this early sunshine takes me back to Ìbàdàn of the late nineties when we lived in a story building at the banks of Ogunpa River in Mọ̀lété. There’s a strange similarity in the air. I was very young, barely speaking, and I had fallen sick. My grandmother wasn’t around so Mummy Zainabu – a co-tenant-, took me to her own sitting room downstairs. There I slept on the bed, had wet towel rubbed on my body, and took fensic.

My grandmother came later that morning, and if I’m remembering well, we went to a clinic. I remember the clinic, and the nurse mean hands and injection, but what I don’t recall is if that was on another occasion or if it happened that same day.

In any case, it’s been a while since I last saw Mummy Zainabu, one of my several ‘mothers’ while growing up in Ìbàdàn while my mother was a world away sending love and care. Mummy Zainabu is petite. Amiable. On one of my last visits to Nigeria, I looked for her and paid her a visit. We hugged, a long tight one. I resisted tears. I was now taller and all.

There’s something about this Monday that reminds me of that very day. In the air. Our lives are flashing out from our eyes… We will go.