I have never been one to enter quietly.
Maybe it’s in the way I walk; unrushed, deliberate, a rhythm of its own. Maybe it’s in the way I take up space, unshaken by the weight of other people’s eyes. Maybe it’s because I have never known how to be small, how to shrink, how to fold myself neatly into expectations the world has tried to place on me.
Or maybe, it’s because I never had to learn.
I am the last child, the only girl, the one my father adored without restraint. He spoiled me, not just with things, but with certainty — the certainty that I belonged wherever I stood; that the world was mine to inhabit fully, without apology. He never taught me to shrink. Never made me believe I had to step aside so others could take up space. Instead, he carried me on his shoulders, let me climb where I wanted, let me move through the world like it was made for me.
And so, I did.
I always will.
So, when I walked into the church that Sunday morning, I did not slip in through the side like they expected.
I took the centre aisle.
Friday, we put my father in the ground, never to be seen again.
Saturday, we danced, because tradition demanded it.
I did not understand why.
Why culture demanded that my brothers and I move our feet in celebration when our father was dead. Why the world expected joy to bloom in a place grief had already claimed.
By Sunday, I was exhausted, drained from the performance, from the rituals that felt too big and too hollow all at once. I did not want another service, another gathering, another moment where I had to sit still in my sorrow and pretend it did not consume me.
I wanted my father, but he was not in the mortuary where I could still visit him, still convince myself that he was only sleeping, still pretend that death had not yet settled into his skin.
He was gone. For real this time.
And so, for the thanksgiving service, I was late.
My brothers, John and Frankie, were already seated in the front row of the church, in the row that had been reserved for us — the children of the dead. We were the centre of attention; the grief-stricken heirs of a man they all knew. The ones they watched, the ones they whispered about, the ones they would judge if we so much as stepped out of line.
I should have been there already.
It does not look good to be late.
John would later tell me how he kept glancing towards the entrance, wondering where I was, waiting. How he expected me to slip in through the side, quietly, as I should have, because I was late.
And then, he heard it.
One, two. One, two.
Not rushed, not hesitant. Just deliberate, just sure.
He turned his head.
And there I was, at the center aisle.
White Agbada billowing.
My father’s Agbada.
He had known I was going to wear it, but he had not seen it on me until that moment. Had not seen how it fit me like it had been stitched for me, how I carried it like I had earned it, like it was my own.
I did not lower my head.
I did not shrink.
I walked, slowly, deliberately.
Through the centre of the church.
Past rows of silent eyes.
Past their confusion.
Past their judgment.
Past their whispered thoughts.
And when I reached the front, before I turned towards my seat, I stopped. I threw the hands of my Agbada over my shoulders, a motion as sharp as a blade, a declaration without words.
Say something.
Do something.
No? Good. Shut the fuck up.
John says he had never been prouder.
That it was gangster.
That I walked through the centre aisle like it was a runway.
I remember the priest watching me throughout the mass, his gaze heavy with not just disapproval, but with disappointment. Like I was something unfortunate. Like it was a shame that a man like my father could have a daughter like me.
But I was prepared for him.
This was the same priest I had heard plenty about. The same priest who, almost a year ago, had stood at my grandmother’s thanksgiving mass and used his pulpit not just to honor her memory, but to pass judgment onto my family. The same priest who had chosen condemnation over compassion, who had wielded his faith like a weapon instead of an offering.
And now, here he was again.
A priest. In a church. Judging me.
And somehow, during his speech, he found a way to speak about sin.
About transgenderism.
About homosexuality.
About lesbianism.
I remember wondering what any of that had to do with my father.
My father, who was dead.
My father, whose name was on the program, whose thanksgiving we had gathered to give.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to stand up and walk out.
But I stayed.
Because grief demands restraint.
Because people were watching.
Because my father deserved peace, even if I had to swallow my own.
John squeezed my hand.
Breathe, his fingers said.
I’m here, his grip promised.
After the mass, the priest came up to me and said, “You look like a boy.”
And I smiled politely, the way I had been taught, and said, “Yeahhh, I’m wearing my daddy’s clothes. I’m the last born, I just want to be close to him.”
I thanked him and walked away before I choked on my own civility.
Later, John and I talked about that moment in the church.
The way he told it, it sounded like a reclamation.
Like power.
Like resistance stitched into fabric.
Like I had done something important, something unforgettable.
Like I had become something.
He joked about how, for some people in that church, that day was their lesbian awakening. How, for some young girl in boarding school, sitting in those pews, I had shown them something they did not yet have words for: possibility.
Because this is exactly what representation is: the moment you see someone living the life you thought was impossible, and suddenly, it isn’t.
And then he reminded me of Weird MC, the Nigerian-British rapper who had once visited my school when I was in Maryland Comprehensive. I was in boarding school at the time, and had come home that day, starstruck, my mind unable to focus on anything but her.
The way she carried herself.
The way she was herself.
The way she did not care.
I had wanted to be her.
And now, maybe, I have become her to someone else.
Maybe some girl in that church, wearing her school uniform, hair neatly plaited, hands folded in her lap, watched me walk down that aisle and feel something shift in her. Maybe, for the first time, she saw herself in me. Maybe, just maybe, she went home that day, unable to focus on anything but what she had seen.
Maybe it was kismet.
Maybe the universe had been tying this thread long before I knew to follow it, looping past and present into a single moment, reminding me that nothing is ever truly a coincidence.
Maybe it was always meant to be this way; just as I once watched Weird MC and saw a life that could be mine, now, someone else was watching me.
I think of that moment often, and I wish it were intentional, because if it had been, I could have written about it differently. I could have seen what John saw. I could have understood my own impact.
But maybe I am not meant to see it.
Maybe it is not meant to be a performance.
Maybe that is what makes it real.
Maybe my light shines because it is simply who I am.
And by shining, I make space for others to do the same.
I do not want to be anyone’s hero.
I do not want to be a symbol.
I just want to be happy.
And if my happiness makes someone else believe that they too can live freely, then that, on its own, is enough. Even just one person, sitting in that church, seeing me and realising, this life is possible, is enough.
And isn’t that the most liberating thing?
To know that no matter who you are, no matter what they say, no matter how tightly they clutch their rules and their judgments and their fear…
You can still be free.