24/07/2025
āMy father never believed I could amount to anything. Not because I was lazy or stubborn. But because I wasnāt Clement.
Clement; my elder brother was the first son, the pride of the family. He had the brain of ten boys. The kind of child that neighbors used as an example when scolding theirs.
When he passed WAEC with flying colors, we celebrated like it was a wedding.
Papa sold one of his plots of land to send Clement to a private university. He even borrowed money from our church.
I was in SS2 then. I told Papa I wanted to learn tailoring after school.
He waved me off. āTailor? Thatās not a future. Face your books or forget it.ā
I faced my books, but not much changed. I was average. Not brilliant, I was justā¦ there.
When Clement came home on holidays, Papa would kill two chickens. Something he never did for any of us.
One day I overheard Papa telling a visitor,
āClement will become a big man. That other one? Letās just say heās still looking for himself.ā
That āother oneā was me.
Then Clement graduated.
The night we threw a party for him, Papa cried tears of Joy while holding a bottle of malt. He said,
āMy joy is full today! My investment is about to yield!ā
We all believed it too.
Until things started changing.
Clement stayed longer in his room. He stopped going out. We found him one night behind the houseā¦ sniffing something from a nylon bag, eyes red like fire.
That was the day Papa collapsed.
Turns out, Clement had been taking dru*gs since his third year in school. He never told anyone. The pressure to bring the whole family out of poverty was k!11!ng him inside.
Soon, things began to go missing around the house. Papaās wristwatch. Mamaās gold earring. Even the ceiling fan from the parlour. Obviously, Clement needed money for his Dr*ugs
The golden boy was falling and fast.
He went in and out of rehab for two years. And when he wasnāt there, he was stealing, or lying.
But me?
I had quietly found my path.
When I left secondary school, I begged Mama to talk to Uncle Rasheed, the tailor on our street. I started learning the trade.
While Clement was still battling himself, I got my first shop.
Then I bought my first industrial machine.
Mama would sometimes cry while helping me iron customersā clothes. āGod sees everything, Tope,ā sheād whisper. āKeep going.ā
Then came the turning point.
Papa had a stroke.
There was no one to run to.
Clement was in rehab again.
Ebun, our last born, was still in school.
So I stepped in.
I paid for the hospital bills. Paid for his drugs. Paid for the physiotherapist that came every evening.
It was my tailoring business that carried the weight Papa thought only Clement could bear.
One afternoon, I returned home in a car I recently bought.
Not to show off, I was just delivering clothes.
Papa was on the veranda, thin and tired. He looked at me for a long time, then said,
āTopeā¦ I was wrong.ā
That was all. No long speech. Just three words Iād waited years to hear.
And that night, for the first time ever, he prayed for me.
"Not every star shines the loudest."
"Some glow quietly, in dark cornersāwaiting to be noticed." "My father chose Clement, but life chose me." "And in the end, it wasnāt brilliance that saved my familyā¦ it was consistency."
Donāt write off any child. Not every seed grows at the same time, but each one deserves water, light, and love.
THE ENDā
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Nicholas Pikiti
