When the rain finally spoke

Everyone in Ajegunle knew Mama Ireti as the woman who never cried. Even when life bent her like a tired broomstick, her eyes stayed dry. She sold roasted corn by the roadside, waking before dawn and returning home long after darkness swallowed the streets. Her hands were always burnt, her wrapper always faded, but her back remained straight.

People admired her strength, but no one knew the weight she carried.

Years ago, rain stopped falling in Mama Ireti’s life.

Her husband, Kunle, had left one evening saying he was going to look for work in Ibadan. He kissed her forehead, promised to return in two weeks, and disappeared like smoke. No letter. No call. No body. Just silence. At the time, Mama Ireti was seven months pregnant.

She cried then—cried until her throat went dry. But after her daughter was born, the tears stopped. Hunger does not respect grief, and a crying woman still needs to eat.

She named her daughter Sade, meaning honor crowns the head.

Sade grew up knowing hardship like a second skin. She hawked sachet water after school, washed plates in neighbors’ houses, and studied at night under a flickering kerosene lamp. Many times, Mama Ireti wanted to tell her daughter to rest, to be a child. But survival was louder than kindness.

One evening, rain fell heavily. The kind of rain that cleans roofs and carries secrets from one gutter to another. Mama Ireti was packing her corn when she heard a weak cough behind her.

A man stood there, drenched, shaking, and thin like hunger itself.

“Please,” he said, his voice barely holding together. “Can I sit?”

Mama Ireti nodded. She had learned that suffering recognizes suffering.

The man sat, coughing harder, rainwater dripping from his beard. As Mama Ireti handed him a piece of corn, her fingers froze. Something about his face felt familiar—his nose, the scar near his left eyebrow.

Her heart beat faster, not from fear, but memory.

“Kunle?” she whispered.

The man looked up sharply. His eyes widened, and in that moment, the rain seemed to pause.

“Ireti…” he said, breaking completely.

That night, Mama Ireti learned the truth. Kunle had been attacked on his way to Ibadan, robbed, and left for dead. He survived but lost his memory. For years, he wandered, sick and broken, surviving on charity. His memory returned only months ago, but shame kept him from searching. He believed his family had suffered enough without him.

Mama Ireti listened quietly. She did not shout. She did not slap him. She only asked one question.

“Do you know you have a daughter?”

Kunle cried then—the kind of crying that shakes the body. He begged to see her.

When Sade came home and saw her father for the first time, she didn’t know what to feel. The man looked like a stranger, but his eyes held something familiar. Mama Ireti watched her daughter closely, afraid.

Sade surprised her.

She knelt and greeted him.

“Welcome, sir,” she said softly. “You’re late, but you’re here.”

Life did not magically become easy. Kunle was sick for months. Money remained tight. But something changed. The house felt warmer. Laughter slowly returned. Rain began to fall again—not just from the sky, but inside their hearts.

Years later, on the day Sade graduated as a nurse, Mama Ireti finally cried.

She cried for the lost years.
She cried for the pain she survived.
She cried because strength had finally met reward.

And as the rain fell gently that day, Mama Ireti smiled through her tears, knowing that even the longest drought cannot silence rain forever.