Everyone has that moment the one that shifts something inside you. It might come in a crisis, a quiet realisation, or from something someone says offhandedly. Mine? It came while watching my parents while I was growing up wear smiles they didn’t always feel, just to make sure we, their children, never felt how hard things really were.
Growing up, we didn’t have everything, but somehow, we never lacked anything that truly mattered. And that’s because my parents carried the weight of our world on their backs silently, steadily. They always make sure we have the most important things we need.
They always go all out to give us whatever we ask for.
I remember the times my mum would serve us dinner and sit at the edge of the table, claiming she wasn’t hungry when in truth, there wasn’t enough for everyone. Or how my dad would come home exhausted after a long day of work, only to step out again because he heard there's an opening for someone to work the night and he couldn’t say no. He couldn't afford to, because he knows what we need in the house, he knows the amount of money he can get if he decides to work that night, even when he was already worn thin.
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What hit me most was watching them try to keep up appearances. You see, there's this kind of pressure that African parents feel pressure from their friends, their siblings, their community to look like they’re doing well. To be able to say, “My kids are in school. My kids are doing fine.” Even when they’re barely holding things together behind closed doors.
I saw it in the way they dressed up for church, or weddings, or PTA meetings. The way my mum would straighten her shoulders when neighbours visited. As if poverty was something you could hide behind perfume and polite laughter.
And yet, I don’t think I fully understood what they were doing, the sacrifices, the swallowed pride, the countless “we’re okay” lies until I got older. Until I realised what it meant to stretch a salary to feed three mouths. Until I realised how hard it is to carry responsibilities that never end.
That was the moment something inside me shifted. I remember sitting alone one night after overhearing my parents talk about bills. They were whispering probably so we wouldn’t hear but I did. My mum said something like, “We’ll find a way. We always do.” And it broke me.
Not because they didn’t have enough. But because they were carrying the load alone. Silently. For us.
That night, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let it stay that way.
That I must make it in life. Not just for me, but for them. For all the times they said no to themselves so we could say yes. For all the times they borrowed dignity just to keep our heads high.
It’s not easy. Chasing dreams in a world that doesn’t hand you many chances. But when you have a “why” that strong, it becomes harder to quit. Every sleepless night, every long hour spent working, studying, or building something from scratch it all points back to them.
I want them to rest one day. To truly rest. To smile without pretending. To enjoy life without calculating what it will cost.
So when you ask me what my biggest “I must make it” moment was, it was simply watching the quiet sacrifices of two people who never asked for much, but gave everything.
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