Short Stories of Women Around the World – Global Woman

Hello, I am Jean Asekun. I am 71 years old and living in USA. Here is a small nugget from my life story still unfolding. I was born in Belfast in 1937. I still remember, I was 3 years old, when my family was evacuated to a sea side location called Portballintrae in Northern Ireland. It was a beautiful place and I have fond memories of my childhood.

I was 22 when I moved to London. Here I met a young man from Nigeria who was studying Petroleum Engineering in the University of London.  Later I married him when I was 27. Within a year of our wedding, we both moved to my husband’s country in Lagos, Nigeria. Here I spent more than five years. During this time we both became the proud parents of 3 little sweet children.

Soon after my first baby was born, my father’s health deteriorated. I was a new mom and could not think of traveling back to my country. Sadly enough my husband was away from me, travelling in Europe at that time. He got a chance to visit my parents in the hospital and took my father’s final picture, which he brought back to me. When I got the news about my father’s demise through telegram from Belfast (These were the olden days when telegram was the fastest way to deliver messages internationally), my father-in-law and sister-in-law came to me to comfort me and leave their condolences as I was new there.

My mother lived several more years and I visited her the following year. During all these years I have lived in many countries like Canada, Saudi Arabia, Africa and Europe and had many more incredible experiences, but even today, this experience of my father’s demise is fresh in my mind and near to my heart.