I HAVE LAUGHED MANY TIMES...

I have laughed many times when I wanted to cry

I have smiled many times when I wanted to SCREAMMMM

From the beginning…

Many of you don’t know the entire story…When I was 6 years old living in Nigeria, I was in a gas explosion accident. I remember this day vividly. My best friend and I walked backed from school to our apartment. I remember us being happy and I think I was mostly happy because I was going to change into my favorite dress-it was a cap sleeve white and navy blue checkered dress! After changing, we ate while my aunts were cooking in the kitchen. After, we took our plates to wash them in the kitchen. While we were in the kitchen watching dishes, my aunts came in to check on what they were cooking. As my friend and I dried our hands and were in the process of heading out back into the living room, my aunts asked if we wanted a taste? And of course we did! And like a scene from a movie in slow motion, as one of my aunts lifts the spoon with chicken (I think it was chicken, I don’t remember!) towards me so I could taste, the gas explodes.

  

   During this moment, we were in front of the stove and I vaguely remember the chicken or whatever it was falling from the spoon as I take off running towards the door. (Back in the day at my house in Nigeria, we used propane tanks filled with gas and those tanks were placed/connected right next to the stove inside the kitchen). As we took off and almost reached the door, the door jams and locks the four of us in the kitchen. What happens next? I remember this part very well. We were stuck, I remember crying. I remember putting both of my arms out and folding them in front of my eyes and the most important of all, I remember saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and then the door falls open backwards and I ran out.

        The first thing I did after running out was running downstairs to the tap to pour water on myself- apparently when you are on fire, you are not supposed to douse yourself with water??? I did not know this. The next thing I remember is being driven to the hospital- we were taken to our family doctor’s  hospital- this is where the “fun/pain” begun. I say that line with total sarcasm because I don’t think there is a way to describe the pain that we had to go through. No one prepares you for the most horrid screams that you hear from others but later realizing that those horrid screams were partly coming out of you. I cannot describe to you how it felt to have my face swell to the point of unrecognition. I cannot describe to you how it felt to see my strong mother faint multiple times because she could not believe her eyes when she finally saw me. I cannot describe to you how it felt when what I had left of my skin felt like it was glued to the bed sheets and had to be ripped off every morning because the nurses had to scrub me down so I did not get an infection. I cannot describe to you what it felt like having a scalpel cut into you while you were awake so that the doctors could find a vein for an IV.  I cannot describe my pain because it is indescribable.

Going through that type of pain was not exactly the worst part of being burned. It was the after fact that left more scars in my heart than the physical scars on my body. It was the trying to be “normal” after your life totally changed. It was celebrating my birthday 22 days later in the hospital that was bittersweet. It was being strong for others around me, telling them “it’s okay” when I was not okay. It was hiding from my brothers when they came back from boarding school because they had not seen me and being afraid that they would think I looked strange. It was all that darn physical therapy! It was going back to school and trying again to be “normal” with your school mates but then realizing that you are not normal because you had to wear pressure garments to reduce scaring. It was being called several names-you are ugly, burnt cookie….by your then school mates/“future friends” and going home crying because you felt ugly. It was asking God why he saved your life because life did not seem worth it anymore.

So when people ask me about my childhood, I laugh because I have to, to conceal my pain. And I say to myself, what childhood? When I was a child, I had to be an adult. I had to be the adult for everyone around me because they were all too busy being sad. I had to put on my big girl pants on because at age 7, I had a lot to deal with and going outside to play was not one of them. I was too scared to go outside because I was afraid of what people would think. I could not go out and play in the sun because we did not know how my skin would react. I was basically locked up in my house because the world outside the gates of our house was too frightening. While other parents were making plans for their children to go to summer camp, we were making plans on how to “fix” me.  Everyone kept saying “oh we thank God that she is alive and that’s all that matters”. They would tell me to be glad that I was alive and doing better and that was all I should think about. They would say, "we will send you abroad so that they can make you look better".  Some would even go to the extent of telling me that over the next 10 years, my scars will fade… yeah right! Nobody then and even now has ever sat down with me and truly asked how I feel. Nobody, even the people that supposedly know me the best then and now, truly know the extent of my accident. It feels like every time I go have another surgery, everyone thinks oh she is just going to dentist for a routine check-up. The “after” of being burned has really sucked! My confidence is fleeting. My self-esteem…what self- esteem??? It feels like for the past 16 years, I have lived a façade of “It’s okay”, “you are strong”… but in reality, I have never been okay or strong. I have been tired, angry, frustrated, weak, scared, lonely, depressed, friendless, sad….and the word “okay/ strong”  has never been one of them.

xo,

Abiola