On this day last year, my mother, Christiana Iyabo Adu died from the complications of Parkinson’s disease, aged 63. I don’t have words to describe the cocktail of pain and emotions that has poured though my soul since then, grief broke me into tiny little pieces.

This post was first published on Woman.NG 

For most of my adult life, I have not been contented. I wanted many things to be different, I wanted to be in another place, and I wanted more than I always had. I am not wrong to desire and pursue the bigger, better and brighter things of life, but I have not done myself much good by allowing that desire to overcome me and blind me to the beauty of the many good things I already have.

This post was first published on Woman.NG 

One of my favorite songs of all times is Emeli Sande’s Read All About It. In the year I fell in love with this song, every evening after work I put it on auto replay while I drowned the noise of the world in a warm bath. There I could listen to my own inner voice, untamed, unafraid, and unashamed. There I could be the one who is not stuck in silence afraid of saying something wrong.