Do not tell my mother I am opening up to strangers again.

There is an ancient Greek word I learnt about in Psych 101, my third year in college. "Nepenthe", it is a noun that translates to a medicine for sorrow. It can also be a place or a person, or thing which aids you to forget your pain and suffering, nepenthe. In telling this story, I hope I find my nepenthe.

I come from a home where everyone is self-reliant. Do not misunderstand, our folks did not care about us any less. They only enforced a culture where we learnt to exist as individuals, as though we were being prepared for a future without family, without warmth, without our people.

We did not hug or hold hands, we could not throw tantrums or scream when we got mad. We could not kiss each other on the cheeks, or get too candid with our emotions.

So it is no surprise that I grew up estranged, aloof, without a care for emotional bonds. It is no surprise that relating with people felt like work, and I thrived in solitude.

Here is the thing, I can front however I want, but I can not deny that there were days where the loneliness got to me, that there were days where I hoped for connections with people on a deeper level.

Disclaimer; this is not fiction, the writer is not a block of wood, he is outside of his mind while writing this, he is not a character, he is aware of what he is writing and is very prepared to be present in his story. In other words, do not separate this writer from this writing.

Ma'abifoluwa Efua Adesina. The first time I met my Iye, the mother of my mother, I was only seven. Mother had drummed into our ears all week that we were visiting Lagos, Nigeria during our summer break. She said our Grandma wants to meet us and in her bid to build familiarity, She mentioned that our Grandma took care of us till we could walk. As though that would make us feel any closer to her. As though we remembered anything that happened before we had turned three.

I do not remember much of the trip to Lagos, besides the sun that hit my face when I stepped out of the airport. I hate afternoons, I hate bright things, I love obscurity, I love dim lights and dark rooms. So my first impression of Lagos was a place set out to unnerve me. I did not have high hopes when we entered Mother's family home. The noise on the way to the house somehow overrode the noise cancelling feature of the headset I wore. I do not want to bore you with my grievances, I only want to tell you about my Iye.

She was 53 when I was 7, She ran to the car when we drove into the compound. She lifted me up with a robustness that left me gaping. She called me Oluwafemi, and I wondered why this woman was shouting a strange name while staring. She patted my hair with a fondness I still feel on quiet evenings, and She would not stop gesticulating and smiling.

But then unannounced, She burst into tears. It was too much stimulation for me, to be honest. My Mother barely smiled, in my house no one even giggled, and yet this woman who supposedly is my grandmother, is flitting between joy and unexplained crying.

So we are seated in her big living room, in a couch that smelled like old mattresses, watching Mother's younger sister, console their mother.

The crying ends, and She becomes her enthusiastic self again, shoving us to the dinning table, insisting a 7 year old me sits on her laps, and allow her feed me, or rather stuff my tummy till I could barely breath.

When evening came, She demanded that my twin sister and I, sleep in her bed.

Iye was handsy, and emotional, and everything I had been taught to not express openly. She would tug at my cheeks and rub my arms, and hold my hands and kiss my face, and pat my back, and hug me tight, and cry and laugh, and leave a trail of emotions wherever She went.

So that is how I ended up with a Yoruba name only one person calls me by, my Iye. Oluwafemi means ‘God loves me’. But Iye liked to only call me by Femi. She pronounced it with so much emotion like you do with a prayer in askance.

Femi is ‘love me’. Iye called to me like She was asking for the very warmth I did not even possess, like She was imploring me to dig deeper, like She was telling me that I too was capable of wholesome loving, that if only I believed, I could feel something similar to what other families share -the bond that makes people cry at funerals, and scream when they lose a loved one.

The woman I am writing about did not fight in the first world war or end world hunger, but She gave me a new life outside of the walls I called home. She taught me about the strength in vulnerability and undid the misconception in my head that love only made you weak. She baked my sister and I, two cupcakes every year beginning with our eighth birthday.

She will handwrite a note to us both and subscribe mine with FEMI, written in caps and emboldened. She will put (love me) in parenthesis, and draw a smiley face next to it. My favorite flavor is strawberry, but She would always make the cake in Choco-vanilla with Oreo crumbs like she loved it.

My summer break ritual became vacationing in Lagos. Overeating under the influence of my hearty Iye, and learning the subtle art of loving.

But I hear God gives short lifetimes to they he loves the most.

When they called me with her diagnosis, It was 2:45 pm on a Thursday. I was at the Lema Press. I was confused, I was a wreck. I went to Lagos the next day. They called me because Iye refused Chemotherapy. They thought I could convince her, something She and I both found funny. Because that woman had a mind of her own, She was more stubborn than anyone I had ever known and if there was one way She wanted to go out, it would definitely be gently.

25th December, 2025.

Iye, they said you slept and never woke up. They said your exit was graceful. They said the morning before you left, you requested your comfort food of Efo riro and white soft rice, soft to the point where it is moist, soft to the point where it is in between remaining grains of rice or becoming a ball of swallow. They said you downed it with a cold bottle of Pepsi, belched a little too loudly, and thanked God for his mercies. They said the morning before you left, you behaved a little too strangely. They said you opened up your suitcases and gifted out your expensive wrappers. They said your eyes were no longer sad, and yet your happiness did not look happy. They said you sang endlessly with unexplained energy.

Iye, they said you slept and never woke up, but the morning before you left, you put up a show and taught us how to say goodbye properly. Iye goodbyes never sat well with me. Till we meet again sounds far-fetched because my place is with humans and yours with beings far superior.

When I started writing this, I envisioned a story highlighting bliss. I was going to tell you about all the beautiful things that made my Iye amazing. Her ability to find a drug for every illness under the sun, the way She always smelled like a garden of flowers after rain, her bottomless kindness, her patience and how for over a decade I never saw her lose her temper, not once.

I was going to tell you about how She mothered seven children and molded them all to stellar heights. I was going to tell you about her happy dance, the one She did whenever I told her about a milestone of mine. I was going to tell you about her copper-colored eyes, about her big heart, and calming lullabies.

But I remember that I can no longer see her, smell her, or watch her switch from joy to tears and tears to joy.

I remember her last letter that ended Mo ni ife re(I have your love), in place of Femi (love me).

And I break down while writing this, and I infect her amazing memory with my anguish.

Ma'abifoluwa Efua Adesina, rest well.

I hope this piece becomes my medicine for sorrow, or like is said in ancient Greek, my nepenthe.