By Adejare Amudalat Adele
They said, men don’t cry.
But what happens when the flame that once danced in your father’s lantern becomes the inferno that eats his flesh and your memories?
They said men don’t cry. But tell me — how do you stay strong when the fire that stole your home also stole your father?
THE DAY I BURIED MY FATHER, I BURIED THE LAST PIECE OF MYSELF THAT STILL DREAMED.
Sighs! ALANI OGO, SUN RE O!
I remember the smell of earth that morning — damp, heavy, unwilling to let go of the body it was about to swallow. My father lay in a wooden box, silent, still, and for the first time, small. He used to look like a mountain — unmovable, strong, fierce, the kind of man who held pain between his teeth and still managed to smile.
They told me to be strong too.
“Men don’t cry,” an uncle whispered, patting my back. But his hand felt more like a warning than comfort. So, I swallowed my tears and clenched my jaw, pretending the ache in my chest was strength.
My father was a mechanic. He used to say that “dreams are engines — you must keep oiling them, son.” But what happens when life steals the oil? When the gears stop turning and all you hear is the sound of rust eating away your hope?
The day the fire took him, the world went dark. The flames swallowed our home before dawn, and by the time I dragged myself out through the window, my throat was filled with smoke and my heart with regret. I screamed his name until my voice broke, but the only answer I got was the crackle of burning wood.
After the burial, I went back to what was left — a pile of ashes, a radio melted beyond recognition, and a buried dream. But in all, I had just one thing left — SURVIVAL!
I’ve got to make it out here, cause if I don’t hustle, the same fire that burned my old man will catch me too — but this time, hunger will fuel it.
I started hustling — carrying loads heavy enough to break my bones, hawking on the streets, running errands for people who throw coins at me like I’m a beggar. I was only seven, and my back was already bent like a man who’s been fighting life for forty years.
One evening, while hawking in the hustle and bustle of Lagos traffic, a man in a shiny car called me over. His window rolled down slowly, and his cologne hit before his words did. He smiled. Said he could help me.
“Small boy like you no suppose dey under sun,” he said, voice calm like comfort, dangerous like silence. “I fit give you food, shelter… better life.”
I believed him. I wanted to believe that maybe, for once, help had found me.
So I followed.
But that night, I learned that not every light saves you, some burn you twice. What he gave wasn’t shelter, it was a room that reeked of sweat and sin. Pain wore a human face that night, and it taught me that some scars don’t bleed — they scream quietly.
I escaped before dawn, barefoot, half-alive, with the sound of my own heartbeat chasing me through the dark. That night, I left behind my childhood and any belief that the world could be kind.
I wandered into Ajegunle — a city that baptized its sons in blood and called it manhood. Every face carried a scar, cry and you bleed, run and you fall. Knives spoke louder than prayers, and tears dried before they could fall. I almost became the hardened shadow of the boy I once was, shaped by pain, molded by fire.
Still, I survived!
I grew up holding my pain like a secret medal. I thought maybe love could soften it. Then I met Ireti — her name meant hope, and I believed she was it.
I gave her everything — my savings from hawking, my strength, my heart, my body, my sweat, my soul. When her mother was dying, I carried a sacrifice to save her — not because I believed in the gods, but because I believed in her, and I dreamed of a future that finally felt safe. She was home or so I thought.
Then one morning, she left. No fight. No reason. Just gone!
Like the fire, she took everything and left me with silence, and the bitter truth is that sometimes, love doesn’t save you. It just teaches you how to break differently.
That was when I fell — literally and painfully.
I was walking home from a site job, carrying too many ghosts — my father, the fire, and Ireti. I slipped from the third floor of an unfinished building. They said I was lucky to live. But what’s luck when your body survives and your soul doesn’t?
My struggles never ended. Every time I thought I’d reached peace, life reminded me that some wounds don’t close — they just learn to breathe.
There were nights I sat by the window, staring at the moon, talking to it like it owed me answers.
• Why does life test those who’ve already lost everything?
• Why must a man bleed in silence just to be called strong?
• Why does love leave the ones who love hardest?
I sat there, lost in my thoughts, asking myself questions life refused to answer. And just when the silence was getting too heavy, a memory broke through. I remembered something my father once slipped into my hand before the fire — a folded note, written in his rough, oil-stained handwriting. It said,
“Son, don’t let the world harden you. Even rocks crack when they hold too much rain.”
I cried that night. The kind of cry that empties you till you meet the boy you left in the fire. That was when I knew: survival is the only thing life couldn’t burn. It’s what’s left when the flames take everything else.
Now, when I pass by his grave, I don’t see just loss. I see the man who taught me that broken men still walk. That even when dreams die, the body keeps moving, hoping one day, something beautiful might still grow out of the dirt.
I buried my dreams beside my father, but the world keeps offering small miracles. And with each one, I reclaim a piece of what I thought the earth had swallowed forever.
And you — when the world buries your dreams, will you learn to dig again?