03/12/2025
“Before Dawn Breaks: The Morning My Family Feared”
My wife is never at peace each time I’m about to leave for work. And honestly, I don’t blame her.
I leave home by 5 a.m., when the streets are still whispering with darkness, when danger hides behind silence. Before now, it was normal routine. But since the wave of insecurities in Nigeria started, fear became the uninvited third party in our home.
Every morning, just when I’m slipping into my shoes, she begins again:
“Obim, have you anointed yourself?” “Did you apply the mystery of the sand?” “Wait, let me pray over your head again.”
At first, I would laugh gently, telling her she was overreacting. But over time, her fear became a weight she carried on her face… and I began carrying it in my heart too.
So, sometimes I obeyed her.I rubbed the oil, sprinkled the sand declaring to the earth, oh earth you will not take my body till I say so. Not because I believed in it… but because she did. And love sometimes means doing what gives the other person peace.
But on this particular morning, I was tired. Not tired of her. Never her! But tired of waking up each day wondering if it would be my last.
I stood up, stretched, and said, “Nne, I’ll be fine. Nothing will happen. Let me go.”
She froze.
And for the first time, she didn’t argue. She simply turned away… wiping her face quietly.
I didn’t know Chinelo, our daughter, was watching from the doorway.
“Daddy, don’t go today,” she said, hugging my leg. “Last night I saw you… you didn’t come home.”
Those words weakened something inside me. I bent down, lifted her tiny chin. “Daddy will always come home, my baby,” I promised.
A promise my heart knew was too big for a man to make.
My wife walked back, eyes red but steady. She placed her hands on my face and whispered, “Just let me pray please...”
This time, I didn’t resist. Not because I was afraid of what was outside, but because I was afraid of what she would become if I didn’t return.
Her hands trembled on my head. Her voice cracked.
Every word from her lips carried the desperation of a woman who had memorised too many bad news headlines.
When she finished, she held onto my shirt like someone holding life itself. “Obim,” she whispered, “Promise me you will try, just try to come back.”
I pulled her close. “I will. As long as God allows breath in me, I will Nkem (Mine).”
Walking out that door felt like walking away from half of my soul. The morning was quiet, too quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your heart beat faster than your footsteps.
But something in me changed that day.Her trembling prayers…Chinelo’s innocent warning…the fear in their eyes…
It reminded me that protecting my family wasn’t only about providing. Sometimes, it was about listening. Sometimes, it was about slowing down.
Sometimes, it was about holding on to faith even if the faith wasn’t yours.
And as I walked into the dawn’s darkness,
I carried their fear…
but I also carried their love.
A love strong enough to pray for me to stay alive. A love strong enough to make me survive even in a world that keeps testing every man’s strength.
Moral Lesson:
Fear is not always weakness. Sometimes, it is love in disguise. The people who worry about us do so because our existence is tied to their survival. In a world full of uncertainties, listening to the fears of those who love us can be the difference between danger and safety.
Courage is not only found in facing the world, but also in honoring the hearts that pray for us to return home.
©Dr. Mabel Onwuemele
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