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“My mother passed away suddenly while I was studying in America. It was such a dark moment for me. She had been the most important person in my life, and I wasn’t even with her when she died. I needed to get home to Zimbabwe for the funeral, but it was right before Christmas so every flight was booked. The only ticket I could afford was a middle seat. It was so cramped. I couldn’t even move my legs. But I happened to notice an empty seat in the exit row behind me.  The flight attendant allowed me to change places, and I sat down next to a white girl. I remember thinking: ‘She’s going to hate me for taking up her space.’ But instead she smiled and made a joke. She said: ‘Welcome to exit row paradise.’ There was an immediate connection. Right away we began talking about deep things. I told her about my mother. And she told me that her father had also died suddenly while she was working overseas.  We started sharing stories of our parents. And before we landed, she ordered two wh...

After suffering a tragic loss, her husband Ben found a way to support one another through the trauma.⁠ ⁠ "For me, learning to embrace rather than resent the ways Ben and I are different has been a key lesson. He lives in the present and loves to spend money on experiences, whereas I’m naturally much more cautious. ⁠ ⁠ "The Easter after Willem died, Ben was working in Africa and said, ‘Why don’t you and the children come out?’ Previously, I might have thought that we shouldn’t go; that travelling through rough terrain with two small children would be too dangerous. ⁠ ⁠ "I’m so glad we did, because for the first time since our loss, I went an entire day without feeling that aching sadness that Willem wasn’t there. It was an amazing moment when I realised my life wasn’t always going to be consumed by grief."⁠

Some questions always get me deep in my feeling pondering life. this time she got the thinking about how my mum, a Trinidadian woman living in a local village in Nigeria with her Igbo husband whom she met at university in England , decided to leave him after 26years, a civil war, and 5 children.  Marie Anya didn't play games with loyalty and commitments. she followed her husband to Nigeria in the early 60s to live in his homeland. she always worked and contributed to build family wealth. bore my dad 6kids, one died in infancy. During the war, dad left mom alone with his family, 2kids aged 6 and 4 and pregnant with a 3rd, while he spent Biafra with a mistress and side chicks. mom ( a nurse midwife) ran escaping bombs with in-laws, delivering babies and giving injection to earn money for family survival. 2 decades in Enugu , Mom never perfected Igbo. understood, but struggled to speak. Dad said he needed somebody with whom he could express  his true heart. there were m...

“I met James when I was twenty-nine. I don’t want to say it was love at first sight— but that’s what he always said. We had so much in common. Both of us grew up in foster care. We’d been homeless together for six years. Even though we lived in stairwells and tents, we’d still go on the dates. We’d go to the park, and the beach, and the movies. Everyone loved him. He was the kind of guy who’d give the shirt off his back. And we had the exact same sense of humor.  He was always making me laugh. But we also had the same addictions. He died of an overdose in January. We’d just gotten in a really bad fight, and we went our separate ways, and that night I got the phone call. I’ve been lost ever since. It’s been a downward spiral. I’ve been using a lot. I’ve been really depressed. One night a couple weeks ago I just walked into Lake Ontario. I think I wanted to kill myself, but I don’t remember much.  I started swimming, and then I just stopped, and floated, until I went under. I wo...

I really don't know what's wrong with religious people but the level of delusion I witnessed today is out of this world. I was walking out of an hospital in Lagos when a lady approached me saying she wanted to preach the Gospel. I responded that she should take that Gospel to the sick folks in the hospital who needed the healing. she insisted that she was directed by the holy spirit to preach to me, and that to prove that it was the holy spirit who sent her, she would raise a dead body in the hospital so I would believe. "this would be interesting" I said to myself. as we stood there, A car rolled up into the hospital carrying a dead person. she walked briskly to the car  and asked if the person was dead and that people would witness the power of Jesus . I looked  on in utter amazement.  well, the lady who had died was stretchered out and the lady "gospel sister" began screaming, and commanding her to wake up in Jesus name. this went on for at least 50 minu...

We named you Amazing because of the mystery surrounded with your birth. So you hurriedly came out from the womb a day to your 7th month....yes you heard me right(approximately last day of your 6th month) because you wouldn't wait to make my whole word to be summed up to 3 letter words-mum". Oxygen and every other equipment were set to aid your survival as you where so tender and immature to survive and you where quickly transferred to the 'baby unit" it became a big shock. The unit seems like a space-age control room - very hot, with lots of flashing lights, beeping monitors and other mystifying pieces of equipment. Among all these are the incubators, My tiny baby was at the centre of a tangle of tubes, surrounded by equipment inside the incubator(I and your Daddy were separated from you and can only see you through the glass of the room window.. (this was to avoid him contracting infection from outside the world) oh how sad it feels only to be apart from your long aw...

“My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting pregnant, then had me arrested when I tried to get my clothes. Then she fucked the head of parole to try to keep me in jail. She was some prime pussy back then. But the warden did some tests on me and found out I was smart, so I got a scholarship to go anywhere in New York. I chose the Fashion Institute of Technology, which I hated. But by that time I was already getting work making costumes for the strippers and porn stars in Times Square.  All my friends were gay people, because they never judged me. All I did was gay bars: drag queen contests, Crisco Disco, I loved the whole scene. And I couldn’t get enough of the costumes. My friend Paris used to sit at the bar and sell stolen clothes from Bergdorf and Lord and Taylors, back before they had sensor tags. So I had the best wardrobe: mink coats, 5 inch heels, stockings with seams up the back. I looked like a drag queen, honey. One night a Hasidic rabbi tried to pick me up ...