What would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits. - Ayobami Adebayo

OK, we'll tell her you dug the grave." It's the truth - stretch, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?

If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love.

It would take a while for me to realise that each of my children had given me as much as they took. My memories of them, bittersweet and constant, were as powerful as a physical presence. And because of that, as a bus bore me into the heart of a city I did not know, while my last child was dying in Lagos and the country was unraveling, I was not afraid because I was not alone.