Bridehood is the process of understanding your mother

I was eight when I wrote my mother a letter. A very serious letter, in my very serious handwriting, explaining how angry I was that she beat me for breaking the tea flask. I asked her if she was even my real mother. Lol. I laugh now. But I meant every word then.

The letter still exists. Tucked somewhere in a folder my dad has kept over the years. Yeaaah, he is that kind of man who documents a life as it is happening, birth charts, report cards, photos, little notes from milestones. And, apparently, dramatic letters from his daughter accusing her mother of adoption.

I was an angry child. Not rebellious in the way people easily recognize. I was quiet- angry. The kind that sits inside you and watches everything. It makes you feel like you don’t quite belong anywhere. Not in school, church, or even at home.

It didn’t help that my mother and I were built differently.

She is soft, kind, deeply compassionate, and religious in a way that makes people breathe easier around her. And then there was I: curious, stubborn, impulsive, and a lot independent. I wanted to live life on my own terms.

We clashed over things that mattered and things that didn’t. Over who I was becoming and who she hoped I would be. I don’t think I ever felt fully understood by her. And maybe, if I am honest, I never really tried to understand her either.

Still, I was “a good child” in the ways that are easy to measure. No trouble. No reports from school. Straight A’s. I gave her peace in the areas that made parenting look successful, except the times when I came back home with a tattoo plastered on my chest, or I wore a dress too revealing.

She wanted us to sit and gist. To share life in that easy, flowing way that mothers and daughters are supposed to. I always felt like my stories were too much and wild, so I kept them to myself. But even from that distance, I watched her, and I admired her.

My mother has a kind of strength that does not announce itself. It shows up in action. In endurance. In the quiet refusal to give up. She taught me that there is always a way if you are willing to go further and try harder.

There is a saying people like to repeat: no one is coming to save you. My mother is definitely coming to save me o. She shows up every time!

I think I understood this early. But I am only just beginning to appreciate it now, as I am standing on the edge of starting my own family.

For years, getting married was her dream more than it was mine. And when it didn’t happen at 24 or 25, she did what many Nigerian mothers do: she adjusted, but not without the questions and subtle reminders wrapped in casual conversations, and I resisted every time.

Marriage, to me, was not a deadline. It was not a milestone to tick off. I had a life I was building. A version of myself I was still becoming. I did not understand the urgency to tie myself to someone forever when I hadn’t fully met myself yet. Every time it came up, I shut it down.

And when I found myself here (as a bride), I expected friction, opinions, and pressure. I expected the usual stories of Nigerian parents causing trouble for the big wedding.

But my mother surprised me.

She has been my pillar of strength. She calls me to reassure and remind me that everything will be fine. That is my wedding. My life. My choices. She says something that stays with me every time: “I will fight for what you want.” She tells me not to worry. Not to cry. Not to carry anything heavier than I need to.

And I find myself pausing, sometimes, after those calls. Because this woman, this same woman I once wrote an angry letter to, questioning her love, is the one holding me the most gently now.

Bridehood is doing something unexpected to me. It is showing me my mother not as the woman who disciplined me, but as someone who was learning too.

She is just a girl.

Maybe she got some things wrong. But she got so many things right. I am beginning to see her fully now. Not just like my mother. But as a woman who has lived, endured, hoped, prayed, and loved in ways I am only just beginning to understand.

I’m starting to see that I didn’t come from nothing. A lot of who I am today, how I think, how I show up, how I handle life, started with her.

So it’s not about becoming her, or doing life exactly the way she did. It’s about taking the good she’s given me, learning from the hard parts, and then shaping it into my own way.

I used to think growing up meant separating myself from her. Being different. Doing things my own way. But now I understand, it’s not a complete break. It’s more like a continuation. And the more I pay attention to who she is, the more I start to understand myself even better.

P.S. Mom, if you’re reading this, I love you beyond words can express. Thank you for EVERYTHING.

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