Tomiwa was sure to be an accountant, she was sure of becoming a bank manager someday.
She studied hard and got good grades. She received different awards and scholarships to study in any great school of her choice. She was ever celebrated.
She got a good job that offered her a pay of a long life of wealth and no more poverty.
She was strong and fearless; she didn’t fear anyone. She was admired by all people around her. This was one girl everyone was ready to be like.
When she talked, people kept quiet to listen to her. She appeared loving and calm and cool and awesome. she was a good girl in the presence of everyone.
Competition would always come but she never gave up. She always had breakthroughs in her adventures. Where people couldn’t enter, she did enter and always conquered. She was never seen as someone who failed. She worked day and night without thinking about her health.
Tomiwa was just a different kind of girl. Her aim was to succeed, and nothing stopped her.
Her life as she grew became clearer to her that she could do whatever she put her mind to do.
When it came to relationships, she tried and tried to make it work, but none of them lasted that long. The men abused her, insulted her and shamed her in ways that she was very hurt.
She gave up on men.
At a young age, Tomiwa never wanted to get married. She stood her ground on it. She only tried to be in a relationship because of her friends and thought to try to get them off her back. Her life growing up was one she tried to forget.
She put on a smile and worked thrice as hard as a man would so that her past wouldn’t discourage her.
She had a home filled with pain and anger. Days would go by, she and her mother wouldn’t eat. They often slept hungry.
Meanwhile, her father would eat the best kinds of food with her two older brothers. She suffered with her mom. Her mom was beaten almost every day.
As her brothers grew older, they also joined her dad in beating her and their mom. this became worse than ever.
Tomiwa stopped school, her brothers went to school and never came out with school grades. You would expect her dad to scold her brothers for bad results, but he never did. He would rather take them out and spoil them till they became hoodlums like her dad.
Years went by, at 14 years old, Tomiwa came back from hawking bread to get money to eat for her and her mom but when she returned, her mom had been beaten to stupor because her mom didn’t prepare food for her dad and brothers; she was seriously beaten by her dad and brothers, kicked, injured, she cried for help but the neighbors couldn’t help because of the fear of her dad.
Her mom died to his beating.
Tomiwa was shocked seeing her mom lie down on the dirty, sandy floor of their compound and no one cared to help her.
She ran to her mom and cried out with so much bitterness and was ready to kill her dad and brothers.
After her mom’s burial, she ran away to Abuja to start a new life. Tomiwa hustled, days went by and sometimes wouldn’t eat. But she never gave up. It was an orphanage home that took her in and gave her a home and helped to go to school.
Tomiwa became a great woman. After all her success, her awards, accomplishments were all hers.
Twenty years by, and one day her dad reached out to her for mercy and forgiveness. He had cancer and had two months to live. Her two brothers had died five years before while stealing from a senator. The robbery didn’t go as they planned.
Tomiwa never answered her dad’s call, she got him arrested and released him as her heart couldn’t handle it. She gave him little audience and he told her how sick he was and that he would soon die.
Tomiwa was willing to take care of him but remembering her mom, her past life and all, she just gave him little money and walked away from him.
Six months went by, and Tomiwa went to visit him at their old home. She got there and found out that her dad had passed three months before. Her world crumbled. Her past, she had tried hard to forget came back. No one else was alive expect her. No home to go back to, no dad, sister, brother, or mom. Only her, a life alone.
Two years later, Tomiwa’s still doing great, got to own a bank she bought, her hard work has made her become a socialite in and people give her the respect she deserves, and finally, Tomiwa is married to an amazing man, and they are both expecting a baby girl.
This story is for us to learn and understand that people are growing up with different kinds of family members.
Tomiwa grew up with a family of pain and anger, but she never gave up on life.
Don’t allow your family or past determine your future, believe in yourself.
Yes, it was too late for her to establish a relationship with her dad but still God turned her story for good.
Forgiveness is very key if we want to make it in life too.
Don’t give in for the devil to tell you that you can’t make it, you can make it, no matter your background or upbringing.
Only God can tell you who you are.