Remembering my mum: ‘My mother was full of life... a vibrant woman’

When Deborah Blankson’s mother died, she was nine years old. In that moment, she lost a home. She credits Cork with offering her a new perspective, allowing her to recover. Now, she calls Cork home.

Revisiting her early childhood with her mother and three sisters, Deborah hears music.

“My mother was so full of life. She loved music and was always listening to the stereo. We were always surrounded by music. I remember we would put our hands on our waists, mirroring her. We would dance in our bedroom, making a line behind our mother and dancing around.”

Deborah’s mother was also a hard-working businesswoman who distributed gold and expensive textiles to shops around Benin in Nigeria.

“She was a vibrant woman, she was never going to rely on a man to survive. She loved to dress up and was vivacious, bringing everyone together in the family to celebrate and socialise.

“She was also very protective of us girls. We lived in a four-bedroom apartment. There were always kids downstairs playing in the sand or whatever, but we were kept in, we were quite curtailed.”

This protected, happy life changed very quickly one Christmas.

“My mother had gone to get Christmas goods to distribute to shops. My dad had taken us to his mother’s house for the holidays. We didn’t know it then, packing up our things, but we would never come home again.”

Deborah’s mum tragically died on that trip, on the Lagos Expressway, a notoriously dangerous stretch of road to Nigeria’s capital city.

“Two days before Christmas, my father got a phone call asking him to come and identify what would be my mother’s body. That moment marked a complete shift in our lives. We would usually get new outfits for Christmas. We didn’t wear them that year. We kept on hoping she would come home but nobody talked about it. There was a lot of silence. I remember that so well – the silence.”

The road is still treacherous today, a fact that pains Deborah, now a mother to four herself.

“That is a painful fact for me – people are still dying. The roads are still the same.”

'My home and my family were gone'

The family never returned to Benin, and they never lived together again as they had done. Deborah’s older sisters were individually sent to different aunties, and she and her younger sister stayed with her father’s mother.

“My home and my family were gone. My father worked on the oil rigs so he was gone a lot and would come home and visit us all in our different homes. I had been used to having two older sisters but suddenly I became the eldest in the house, looking after my little sister who was only seven.”

Everything changed.

“My mother, when she was alive, had been busy but she was also very present. We had an older cousin who would help too, and it felt like my mother was always around. She was always available. I think that’s why she worked as a distributor rather than having her own shop.

“When we went to live with our grandma, it all changed. There were no rules any more, we could go where we wanted. I couldn’t embrace the freedom of being allowed to play with loads of other kids all the time – I wasn’t used to it. Instead, I found escape in books. This is when I developed my love of reading.”

Her father’s decision for Deborah and her sister to remain in Warri related to the practicalities of culture and family in Nigeria, Deborah explains.

Her mother and father were from different tribes.

Before her mother died, she had been surrounded by her mother’s family. Following her death, she lost ties with the family she had known, migrating to her father’s side.

“There is such tribalism in Nigeria. There is tension between them. That is one reason, when the accident happened, we didn’t go back.”

Thankfully, things changed for the better when Deborah was in her fourth year of secondary school.

“My father married another woman, from the same tribe as my mother. She is the best, and she brought all of us back together again as a family. They had another three children together, so now we are seven. She is very different to my mother, not as bubbly. She is reserved and religious and quiet. But the caring part of her is the same. I see her as an angel. She nurtured us as my mother had once nurtured us. In that special way, they are the same.”

'My body held the shock of it'

Deborah reports suffering from panic attacks for a long time after the death of her mother.

“I had a lot of anxiety. I didn’t understand any of it until I came to Cork and studied trauma at UCC. We never talked about anything when my mother died, but my body held the shock of it. I came to understand that anything could trigger an attack.”

She describes her move to Ireland as an extremely positive one.

“It was my first time going to therapy. Up until then, I didn’t have the words to express how I was feeling. I know now that if I hear voices and struggle to breathe, I am having an attack. Naming it really helped.

“I know what I need to do now if I’m in trouble. I can go to my doctor and say that I’m fragile and need help. Prayer is good but we are not just spiritual – we are emotional, psychological, and physical too. We must look after ourselves to heal.”

Deborah lived in Direct Provision when she first arrived here.

“When I was in Nigeria, I was busy and so I could numb myself. In Ireland, I was forced to sit with my pain. I couldn’t hide it any more.”

As with her stepmother, she sees Cork as a blessing in her life.

“The universe conspires to bless you. That is what happened when I moved here. I started running; I started studying in UCC, and I became involved in the Cork Migrant Centre. Before now, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about my mum and what happened to her, and to my family. I have learned the importance of honouring that part of my life and that little girl – she needs to be seen and nurtured.

“I miss my mum, and I love her. I’m comfortable to talk about that now. I wonder sometimes if she is looking after me still. I don’t know, but it’s a nice thought.”