Unexpected Separation

Visiting a school for the deaf outside Jos

My son is now the age I was, almost to the day, when I found out my dad had malignant melanoma and would be leaving Nigeria to seek help in California. I was 16, just weeks away from turning 17, and like Josiah, in my senior year. It was probably the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me, and decades later, I continue to ponder the ramifications. 

My dad had first been diagnosed with melanoma when I was just a few years old. I have no memory of that experience. Now, as I parent children the same age as I was then, I can only begin to imagine how frightening and troubling that would have been to both my parents. My dad was a student and my mom cared for me and my baby brother full-time. Dad underwent surgery and, as far as we all knew, recovered fine. 

I didn't realize he was living on borrowed time.

We moved to Nigeria in 1991 when I was 14 and the first few years were uneventful. I made some dear friends at school and the other expat medical families who lived on the hospital compound with us came to feel like family. But in the fall of 1993 we received dreaded news. A spot on my dad's skin had been analyzed and showed evidence of melanoma, the most dangerous kind of skin cancer.

Everything happened in a whirlwind.

Within days, he and my mom were booked on flights back to the US, and my siblings and I each had a home (or more than one) in which to live while we were in Nigeria without parents. I don't remember those days very well. I do remember that I had a huge mix of feelings: fear for my dad, sorrow that I wasn't with them during such a scary time, joy in getting to live with my best friends, sadness as I missed my brother and sister who I now only saw briefly at school, passion for the boy I was in love with at the time. 

My first Easter without my parents and sister

It wasn't long until Christmas break came, and the three of us kids flew back to the US to spend the holidays with my parents. My brother was almost 15 and my sister was 11. I don't remember when decisions were made but I do know that after Christmas, my sister ended up living with my folks in CA while my brother and I returned to Nigeria to finish out the school year. I desperately wanted to graduate with my class and not miss my last few months in a country I'd grown to love.

                               

Back in Jos, my brother and I were hosted by a neighbor family who had a 2-year-old and newborn twins. In my mind and my memories, this was the beginning of my adulthood. I was prematurely severed from my family and my childhood, and I had just turned 17. Yes, that actually seems like old enough, in the grand scope of things. Girls around the world get married or have babies at that age. But for me, it wasn't expected, and it wasn't chosen.

The worst thing about the separation was that these were pre-internet days (especially in Nigeria) and thus I did not have good communication with my parents. Also I was caught in a barely survivable maelstrom of feelings and responsibilities. I was desperately in love and aware that I only had a few months left before my boyfriend and I parted for two different colleges. I frankly wanted to spend every minute with him! But I was living in a home that really could use my babysitting help and in fact, expected it. As parameters regarding babysitting hadn't been established at the beginning, I often felt "put upon." I also was struggling a bit in my dating relationship but had no dad to stay up talking to about it, no mom to check in with me and see how I was really doing.

With my best friend Jeanette at our Baccalaureate service

It was a hard time. I even became borderline anorexic. Thankfully a dear friend, who was my piano teacher and choir director at school but also my Bible study leader, recognized that I was falling apart. I still remember one Friday at school when she must have caught sight of me or heard me talk and became worried for me. She talked to the school principal about giving me permission to leave campus and drove me to her house where she gave me a bite to eat and then put me to bed. I spent the night there and ate more than I had in a while. We talked, she listened, my soul felt cared for, and I was better prepared to go back to my life at my neighbors' house.

In June, my dad came back to Nigeria to deal with some of our stuff and to see me graduate. My mom and sister, however, were unable to come. Dad was only in Jos a few days, leaving my brother and me to fly back ourselves a few days after he did. My boyfriend handed me a heartbreaking letter the morning I left, naming all the ways I had wronged him and was wrong for him -- just in time for me to be able to do nothing about any of it. I felt betrayed. It definitely was not the way I'd wanted to leave Nigeria.

With my best friend Amy just before graduation

My dad did a full twelve months of immunotherapy treatment and then was in remission. Mom, Saralynn, Jonathan and he returned to Jos in January 1995. After that painful semester of premature separation from my parents in the Spring of 1994, I did have a few summer breaks with them (though not the one after my freshman year of college) and did eventually have improved communication. But their home was Nigeria and I stayed in the US (and also lived in England briefly). We were never again a family unit in the way we had been my first 16 years.

Now Josiah is just the same age. I already dread the day that he and Naomi go off to college and our home is fundamentally changed without their presence. But for that to happen tomorrow, suddenly, with no choice and no warning ... my heart would be broken. I will try to treasure the time I have left.