Miracle

I became a mother at the age of 16. My name is Judith Eke. I am from Delta state in Nigeria. I have an older sister named Lilian. We were just two in the family and I loved her with everything in me. My dad was a business man so he was always traveling around the world making lots of money for the family. I had always thought that we were rich enough so Dad should spend time with us but anytime I mention this, my parents scream at me as if I just said a bad word. My mum was a celebrity, an actress to be precise so she had a busy schedule and was never around. It was just my sister and I against the world. Lilian was a lot older than me. She was precisely 20 years older than me. I heard that after mum gave birth to her that she didn’t want another child because she wanted to maintain her body. I was born as a result of a drunken act. Mum was just awarded “actress of the year” and she was so happy because that has always been her dream. She drank a lot that night and slept with my Dad and she became pregnant with me. She disliked me a lot because I reminded her of the movies and schedules she missed for nine months because she was carrying me in her womb. After she conceived me, she still maintained her perfect body so it wasn’t hard at all for her to resume work. She never breastfed me because she didn’t want a swollen breast.

       Lilian was the only mother I knew. My real mother only cared about her movies and drinking. She never carried me. She doesn’t even look at me. I am pretty sure that she doesn’t know my birthday. I lacked parental love. Even though my sister was always there, I still missed something and that was motherly love. I started school at the age of five. I was intelligent, beautiful and a little big. I was five years old but people hardly believed that. They thought I was seven or eight years old. Well! That’s what happens when you come from a “rich and loving” home. Lilian was the one that took me to school and brought me back. Any day she had afternoon or evening lectures, I had to wait alone in school for her to finish up and come and pick me. I see my parents once a month or not at all. I knew that very soon Lilian would leave home and move into her husband’s house but when it came, it was sudden and totally unexpected. I was in pains the day she left.

       Lilian studied business administration in the university and during internship she met Josh who she fell in love with and he proposed to her. After five months, they got married and she left the house. Two days after Lilian left the house, my mum got a male housekeeper for me. She made sure the new housekeeper was a male because she didn’t want a female that might seduce her husband, the same husband that is never around. She didn’t bother to think whether it was really okay for me to be alone in the same house with a male and I didn’t really care because I needed companion and a friend too. Mum went to the rural area and got a housekeeper named John. He was very handsome or should I say beautiful. The moment I saw him, I fell in love with him. Nobody bothered to teach me anything about sex education. I never learnt about men lying about their feelings just to get a girl in bed so when John began to reciprocate my feelings towards him, I thought that I would finally be happy. It was my birthday and I was very sad because my parents weren’t around and they didn’t even call. I went to my favorite playground to cry and think about my life so far. I was hoping and still waiting for their call but it never came. It got darker so I went back to the house. On getting to the house, I received the biggest shock of my life. John had planned a surprise birthday party for me. I couldn’t stop smiling. I had no idea that he had an ulterior motive. I was so happy that when he led me to the bedroom, I thought it was love. I had no idea what lust was. How do you expect me to differentiate between love and lust when I never learnt anything about them. That very day, I gave my virginity to John thinking we were going to be together only for me to wake up the next day to the greatest shock of my life.

        I woke up the next morning to find a note by the side of my bed. John wrote that he never loved me, he wanted to sleep with me and he had finally achieved his goal so there was no reason staying in the house. He took some of our furniture and my dad’s cars and left the house. I felt so bitter. My mum came back the next day and screamed at me for chasing the housekeeper away. She didn’t even bother to hear my own side of the story. The only thing she did was hire a new help who was an old woman this time around and she left. After sometime I discovered I was pregnant, when I told my parents, they gave me 10 million and chased me out of the house. I wandered around looking for a place to stay. My only sister shunned me when she heard of my pregnancy. The family asked me to abort the baby but I couldn’t kill my own child. As I was wandering one day, a man saw me and took me home. I stayed in his house till the day I delivered. His name was Chris and he was 22. Chris was from a rich home but he was an orphan. His parents left everything for him so he had more than enough. He was with me through the pains of labor. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and named her Miracle because I went through a lot but I still made it alive. Chris made me go back to school and when I got older, we got married. My life experiences only made me stronger.