Children and Childhood

Independence

The cold in Jos is usually severe around January. But the cold that morning my father woke me up with a bowl of fridge water and cane was different. He was using the whole of his strength to flog me. I had messed up, and I knew. I had returned home 3 hours after the night devotion was over the previous night and the night devotion was the limit of my curfew.

I was not going to scream and run around the house, the way it is normally done whenever my father is vexed. I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but I didn’t run. I moved away from the bed and stood, waiting for him to move closer. He did, raising the cane as he approached me. But I shocked him. Collecting the cane from his hand wasn’t a difficult thing for me too. And he stood there shocked. “Kill me!, just kill me” I screamed while I came closer to him. I was just 13, but I knew I had to face my biggest fears. My father was shocked, my thoughts were for him to get angry and beat the hell out of me. But he didn’t. Instead, he dropped the cane and walked out in defeat. I had won.

Younglan Louis