Theirs was a classic Father/Daughter story. She was the apple of his eyes. His Miss Nigeria if not Miss Universe. He was her knight in shining armor. The one person who could do no wrong. She sat on his knees into her teens – much longer than many puritans would deem acceptable. He was putty in her hands and her siblings knew where to go if they needed difficult favors from their dad. It was at her late adolescence, that deeply emotional stage in life when family stability is most important, that her world came crashing down.
Her father, her pillar, suddenly left home to live with another woman leaving the family distraught. It was to be expected that bitter comments were made about him around the house by sympathizers and probably busybodies. Although she felt the betrayal as deeply as her mother, or even more, she couldn’t bring herself to say hurtful words against her father. So she would remain silent and sullen whenever negative comments were being made against him. But the whole experience was a learning process for her. She gained new insights about her father from the discussions around her which made some emotional scales to fall off. That he could break up a once cozy family, let alone her world so easily, so remorselessly, shook her to the bones and said a lot about the man who had been her everything.
