What’s the worst thing that happened to you that nobody believes?*

The story is not for the weak if you know you are not strong enough please do yourself a favor by not reading this because if you do you will cry your eyes out.

 Title: What’s the worst thing that happened to you that nobody believes?*

They called it “the year the river took everything” in my village. 2009. I was 11.

We lived by the Volta River in Ghana. Poor, but we had each other. My mom, my 3 younger brothers, and me. Dad died 2 years before.

That rainy season the river didn’t stop. For 17 days straight it rained. The elders said they’d never seen it like that. 

On day 18, at 3am, we heard screaming. “Water! Water!” The river broke its bank. 

We ran. No shoes, no clothes, just my mom dragging us 3 kids by the hand. My youngest brother Kofi was 4. He couldn’t keep up. The water was already at our knees, then our waists. 

My mom turned back for him. She pushed me + my other brother into a tree and said “Climb. Don’t look down. Don’t let go.”

I climbed 3 branches up. My brother held my leg. 

From the tree, I watched the water take our house in 30 seconds. I watched my mom swim back for Kofi. She found him. She held him above her head.

Then a piece of our metal roof came floating fast, like a knife. 

I don’t need to describe what happened next. 

The water dropped 2 days later. 200+ people from our village died. 

Officials came with cameras and rice bags. They asked “How many did you lose?” I said “2”. They wrote it down and left.

Nobody believes me when I say I still dream of my mom’s face that night. Not scared. Just… tired. Like she was sorry she couldn’t carry us both.

People say “God has a plan”. I don’t know about plans. 

I just know I’ve been climbing that tree in my head for 15 years. And I still haven’t let go.

*Am I wrong for being angry at a river? Or at a world that came with rice bags 2 days too late?*

I got you Lovina. Here’s *Episode 2* — the part nobody believes because it sounds like a ghost story, but it’s what really broke me.

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 Part 2 - The year the river gave something back*

For 15 years I thought the river only took.

After the funeral, my uncle took me + my brother to Accra. “New life. New school. Forget the village.” But you don’t forget a tree.

Every night I dreamed the same thing: My mom’s tired face, water up to her neck, Kofi in her arms. Then the metal roof. Then black.

People said “move on”. Teachers said “focus on your grades”. I got the grades. But at night, I was still 11, still climbing.

*Year 7 after the flood. 2016.*  

I was 18, in my first year at uni. One rainy night the power cut. I was walking home through Kaneshie Market and the gutters were overflowing. Just like Volta. Just like 2009.

I froze. Couldn’t breathe. An old woman saw me shaking and pulled me under a kiosk. She wrapped a cloth around my shoulders. Didn’t ask questions.

Then she said something that made my blood stop:  

“Your mother’s eyes are still tired, but now they’re tired of watching you drown on dry land.”

I stared at her. “How do you know about my mother?”

She just smiled, toothless, and pointed at my wrist. I had a scar there. Thin, white. From the tree branch in 2009. My brother’s fingernails when he held my leg.

Nobody in Accra knew that scar. Nobody.

The woman said: “The river didn’t just take. It remembers. And sometimes… it returns what it borrowed.”

Then she pressed something into my hand and vanished into the rain before I could ask her name. A small wooden carving. A woman holding a child above her head. Rough, wet, smelled like river mud.

I still have it. 

*Here’s the part nobody believes:*  

Since that night, I don’t dream of the metal roof anymore. I dream of her swimming. Not away from me. Toward me. And she’s not tired now. She’s calling my name.

People say grief is you learning to live without them. 

I think grief is them learning new ways to reach you.

So no, I’m not angry at the river anymore. 

I’m angry it took me 15 years to realize my mom never let go. She just taught me how to swim.

_Am I crazy for talking to a piece of wood? Or is a mother’s love the one thing floods can’t wash away?_

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