TOKONI

My joy!. Was what mum called me. I never really knew the meaning of those words, but with the way mum would smile when she called me that, those words became my happy words.

Mom detected the symptoms when I was 6. I had already been rejected by several schools. I was unable to communicate with my teachers, I preferred playing alone, I couldn't concentrate in class, couldn't maintain steady eye contact, couldn't hold a pencil. At first she taught I was really slow growing up but that was not it. I was born Autistic.

When Mom found out about it, she told Dad, who was away as usual, on one business trip or the other, I couldn't tell what they had told each other, -she spoke in a hushed tone- but I saw mum cry, I never wanted to see mum cry, it made me over-hyper watching her cry. The following weeks saw us attending meetings with different doctors, mum wanted to learn more about "how special I was" (so she said), we visited schools, mum explained to me that those schools were schools for special children like me. Mom wanted the best for me, she put me up in the most expensive "Special school" in the city. She began working extra hours at the office, just to make sure I had the best, yet still spent quality time with me, I guess dad wasn't contributing to my education. He had the money, I knew he had the money, I saw it in the way he hosted elaborate parties whenever he was home. He only pretended to love me in front of his friends, he never took me out, never really spent time with him. He called me a lost cause.

The Darkness came on the day mom dropped me at school and never returned. It was an hour past closing time. Mom was never this late!! I was getting jumpy already. My teacher called our house and the house keeper came to pick me up. I couldn't sleep that night, I was restless and made a fuss over everything. The housekeeper gave me some pills and I fell asleep. I saw mum smiling down at me. I woke up, I knew she was gone.

4 years already, I miss mum so much. I stopped attending school when she died, Dad said he didn't have the money to waste on a lost cause. Rashidat the house keeper was the only one who knew my needs, she loved me like a sister. The table kept turning on me, Rashidat's mum had just died and she needed to go back home to Kaduna. I would spend the next three weeks with Dad.

He absolutely hated me. Never spared an opportunity to tell me how much I disgusted him. Last night he showed me the video of a young girl who took some drugs and almost immediately started foaming at the mouth and died seconds later. He dragged me to my room and beat me.

This morning I sat on the sofa in front of the TV. It was switched off. He came in from his room already prepared to leave for work. Switched the TV on , selected that depressing channel again the one with the many deaths, they were showing how a man jumped from a building, and immediately died as he landed on the ground. Dad said "Tokoni see! One more burden has left the world, I wish you could be like that man", again he reminded me for the 100th time of how I was the reason mum died, because she was in such a haste to pick me from school and crashed into another car. Those words pained me. Mum was way too careful a driver to crash into another car.

I'm standing at the balcony upstairs. I look down, maybe if I stopped breathing , maybe dad would be happier and stop hating me, maybe I could see mum again, see her smile again. Smile plastered on my face I climbed onto the railings on the balcony and jumped down. I kept falling till I saw a bright light and mom's face smiling at me, arms wide open for an embrace.

📷: Chelsea Werner
The autistic champion gymnast turned model.💜
The living legend!!