Every morning, before the sun rose over the rooftops, Sarah was already awake. She did not wake in a bed. There was no mattress, no pillow, not even a mat—only the cold, unyielding concrete beneath the bridge at Mile 2, her home. She folded the ragged wrapper she used as a blanket and brushed dust from her threadbare gown, once white, now permanently brown with stains.
Her slippers were two different colors, barely holding together. Yet she wore them with quiet dignity. She always did.
Around her, other homeless people stirred—young men smoking early-morning wraps, girls who laughed too loudly to hide too much pain, small children begging for sachets of water. But Sarah was different.
They called her “Mama Bridge.” Not out of affection—just recognition. She had no tribe there, no kin, no one who came looking for her.
“Ah, Mama, you no go die?” one of the boys once joked.
Sarah only smiled faintly, her eyes fixed on the rising sun.
If only they knew.
Once upon a time, she had held a baby boy in her arms. A child she named Agu, after strength, because he was all she had left when the world broke her.
But that was a lifetime ago.
Now she hawked bananas on the streets of Enugu to survive. She never begged. People often asked, “Mama, don’t you have children? Where is your husband? Who left you like this?”
She answered with silence.
Sometimes she whispered, “God is enough,” and walked away.
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