The Offset
It all started when I found out that my dad lost his job. It left the scar of ‘you can’t achieve your dreams anymore’ on me. The young girl who carried a lot of infectious smile suddenly became popular for always wearing a frown. I started feeling like my family name carried misfortune, but I had to own it with pride nonetheless. My name is Makena Ajani and this is my story.
I was born into a poor family where we had to work so hard for daily meals. Daddy tried everything he could just to afford me and my brother an intermediate level of education, but he lost his job along the way. Things went from bad to worse, to the point that my dad had to accept a daily wage labor, just to ensure we had food on the table. He did that for a while until the day he ran out of luck and slipped from a ladder at the construction site. He broke his neck and died on the spot, way before we could secure a university degree.
My brother was in his second year in the university, while I was in my final in secondary school. The news of my father's demise inflicted a stroke on my mom and subsequently she fell into a coma, leaving me and my brother to decide on how and what we are going to do with our lives.
