"You'll fit for a nurse because you are very compassionate and more than that, you know how to lay a bed properly," My dad would always tease me, and I didn't think it was a bad idea after all; he was also a doctor.
My mindset changed when I walked into the "Save Hand Hospital", the day I had to be injected because I had come down with a fever.
This beautiful lady walked in with her white fitted dress and a cap indicating she was a nurse, and then she brought out the tiny rodlike instrument with a sharp point towards me. I had wanted to run, but I realized the door was shut. "Should I bite her?" My adrenaline was giving me different options to be safe simply because I had a phobia of injections and I didn't like to see a nurse around me, but there was nothing I could do. I watched her search for the right vein to prick the needles in, and from that moment on, I realized I wouldn't be a nurse anymore.
I needed to be liberated from the fear of needles, so I thought, "Are there a thousand and one other things I could do with needles?"
My liberation began in Junior Secondary School two when I had an encounter with Mrs. Jegede my Home economics teacher, I watched her do so many amazing things with the hand needles during our class practicals and unknowingly she began to influence my life gradually.
I particularly find myself smiling and being enthusiastic about the class, especially when Mrs.Jegede walks in and says, "We will be having a sewing practical in a fortnight". Right in my seat, I would have imagined a thousand and one things I could do with my hand needle, and so I always looked forward to the practical.
One Saturday evening, I walked up to my dad in high spirits with one of the projects I had completed. I sat beside him and excitedly showed him my project. "Dad, I will work with needles now, but differently." I watched how amazed my dad was at the first project I completed with my hands, using just a needle, thread, and a leftover African print in the house.
"This is so beautiful," he cheered me on and said, "If it makes you happy, then you have my support, my darling," My dad was a sweet man and didn't force me to do what I didn't have a passion for.
After junior high school, my dad and my mom went to the market to get me a sewing machine that I could use for practical purposes and to perfect my skills.
I began to influence the choice of clothes in my house by creating fancy styles for my mom and siblings and in time, I became passionate about the use of needles ranging from making a hat to making a dress, to making a brooch and even slippers.
Then I realized that the use of needles was my superpower; maybe Dad saw this coming, but from a different angle, not to pierce and prick skins and veins but to pierce and prick through fabrics, leathers, and papers.
All images used are mine.