L.J's red jumper chronicles.

When you ask my father if he has daughters, he’ll simply say he has children. To him, we were never “just his daughters" in the way people usually mean it, we were just his children. And in his house, that distinction mattered. It meant there was no room for the “but I’m a girl” card. Not once. Not ever. We grew up knowing that roles were not divided by gender. If something needed to be done, you did it. Simple. We climbed roofs to fix the TV aerial so he could watch football. We helped offload the car, lifting and carrying things that felt far too heavy at the time, figuring it out together while he stood aside, watching, not out of neglect, but out of quiet expectation. And then there were the moments that felt like abandonment but were actually lessons in disguise. He would drop you at a doctor’s office or a bank, give you clear instructions, and leave. Just like that. No hand holding. No waiting. You could stand there, overwhelmed, even fight back tears, but he wouldn’t come ...

Have you ever noticed that many people tend to be closer to relatives on their mother’s side of the family? It’s not necessarily because maternal relatives are kinder or more welcoming sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. One possible explanation lies in the science of imprinting and early emotional bonding. During pregnancy, a mother’s social environment often includes frequent interactions with people from her own family i.e., her siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. These are often the individuals who call, visit, offer support, and whom she speaks about most often. The developing baby, while still in the womb, is sensitive to the mother’s emotional states and physiological responses. When the mother experiences comfort, familiarity, or joy in relation to these people, those emotional signals can influence the baby’s early associations. After birth, these same relatives often continue to play a prominent emotional role in the child’s environment. Importantly, this ex...

“A mother’s love is seen and felt…” Behavioural scientists have long documented the differences between men and women, often highlighting subtle contrasts in how care and affection are expressed. In many of these discussions, mothers are portrayed as the more nurturing parent, soothing, expressive, emotionally present. Popular books like ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’ have further simplified these differences, making them easy to digest, easy to repeat, and easy to believe. But who is to say a father is not just as nurturing only that his love speaks a different language? Where a mother might hug a crying child and rock them gently until the tears subside, a father might quietly ask what happened and then disappear briefly, returning with a sweet, a snack, or an idea that might fix the problem. Not because he doesn’t feel the pain, but because his instinct is to solve, to restore balance, to make things okay again in the way he knows how.  As children grow older, this di...

“Mama! Mama!” That call became her signature tune, the sound that made her mother’s heart skip a beat every time she heard it. This is the story of Ella, the family’s messenger of doom. A role she never asked for, but one that somehow chose her, maybe because she is the eldest daughter in the family of Habbu. Ella is the fourth child out of eight. Before her are three brothers whom Habbu, their father, sent to the white man’s land, America, to study and make something of themselves. So when they left, Ella became the eldest at home, holding the fort for everyone else. She took care of her parents, her younger siblings, and in many ways, became the glue that kept the family running. With that came another role, that of the bearer of news. All news. But mostly, bad ones. The first message came like a thief in the night. A telegram from Nairobi. Her younger sister’s husband had died, barely two years into marriage, leaving behind two little children, one still breastfeeding. There were n...

I don’t always understand it, but I’ve come to accept that I see things before they happen. Sometimes, it comes in dreams, vivid, detailed, and impossible to shake. Other times, it’s just a knowing, a deep, undeniable sense that something is about to unfold. I used to find it strange. Now, I treat it with reverence. There was a time when I went a whole month unable to focus. The dead wouldn’t leave me alone. Every night, they came to me, not with fear, but with urgency. Faces I’d never seen, voices carrying messages that weren’t meant for me. They pleaded with me to find their loved ones and speak for them. It was overwhelming. I tried to carry on with normal life, but my spirit was somewhere else straddling two worlds. I’ve looked at people and simply known. I knew that something was coming, good, bad, life-changing. In the beginning, I’d be consumed by fear. But over time, I learned to pray. I realized that perhaps knowing wasn’t just for knowing’s sake. It was an invitation to inter...

When I think of prayer, I remember that the African way was often through calling on our ancestors. Long before formal religion came to our lands, our people believed that those who had gone before us still walked with us, standing at the threshold between the living and the divine. Ancestors were not distant shadows but custodians of wisdom, protectors of families, and intercessors who carried our cries to God. Whether through libations poured on the earth, whispered names in the quiet of the night, or ritual gatherings around the fire, prayer in Africa was deeply relational, a way of keeping the bond between generations unbroken. I never imagined I would one day find myself reaching for that path. But when my niece lay in a hospital bed, and doctors struggled to find a clear diagnosis for her discomfort, I felt powerless. That night, my sister sent a message saying the doctor suspected a heart defect. My younger sister and I had just left Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital around 3 a.m.,...