Former BBNaija star Uriel Oputa recently opened up in a heartfelt conversation with Woman.NG about her mom, Mrs. Blessing Oputa, who is facing the tough battle of dementia. Uriel shared her feelings and the challenges that come with caring for her mom during this difficult time.

Even though she’s a bit fragile and sometimes forgets things—like who her own daughter is—Mrs. Blessing Oputa is still the biggest inspiration in her daughter Uriel’s life.

When Uriel was just two years old, her mom, who was only 36 at the time, faced a huge challenge: she lost her husband and was left all alone to raise five children. Uriel watched her mom work tirelessly to provide for her and her siblings. Uriel once shared, “I grew up in the UK but my dad died when I was two years old, so I didn’t grow up in a household with a father. My mum was my father and is my mother.”

Uriel’s mom is dealing with dementia, which is a tough condition that affects how she thinks and remembers things. It changes her behavior, and Uriel and his brothers noticed that their mom wasn’t quite herself anymore. They were puzzled and worried about what was happening to her. So, they took her to the hospital, where the doctors explained what was going on and gave her a diagnosis. It was a big step, and they knew they had to understand this new chapter in their lives.

Uriel continued, “We started to notice quite early because we’ll be watching stuffs and she’ll be asking you the same questions over again. One day, she tried to cook chicken but ended up putting the whole chicken packet with the plastic inside the microwave. If nobody came at the right time, the place would have exploded. She’ll be cooking, frying something, everywhere will be smoky and she won’t notice. She’ll come inside the house, she will leave the front door open and she won’t know. It was very scary. My mom would normally go to work and come back, but we noticed she will go to work and wouldn’t know how to find her way home and she will call us and be crying that she doesn’t know her way back that someone should come and get her that she doesn’t know where to go, she doesn’t know the right step to take, she’s lost and this is a route she has been taking for many years, and that she doesn’t even know the way to our house.”

Once upon a time, there was a hardworking mom named Uriel’s mother. She spent her whole life taking care of her kids, pouring all her love and energy into them. But one day, stress from all those years caught up with her, and she had a stroke because of her high blood pressure. Now, at just 64, Uriel’s mom struggles to walk and can’t even cook the meals she used to whip up so easily. She looks older than her years, and Uriel worries for her dearly.

She continued, “She had a stroke, so from the stroke, she developed this illness, brain damage. Her body is shutting down slowly. Like now, we’re in Nigeria; she doesn’t know where we are. She keeps asking me, are your brothers coming? Are we in London? Then she says, ‘I want to go and see my mother’ and I say, ‘mummy, your mother is dead.’ Yes, but I want to go and see her. So, everything doesn’t make sense to her sometimes.” She added, “I was still very young and I still wanted to live my life fully but because of her, I wasn’t able to live my life fully. I started caring for my mum at a very young age when I was supposed to be hanging out with my friends; I was at home looking after my mum.”

As the only girl in the family, she felt a special duty to take care of her mom, and she did it with a smile. For Uriel, it was the perfect moment to show his mom how much he appreciated everything she had done for them.

“My mum had a choice. She was 36 and a widow. She had a choice to dump us, in fact, ‘take them back to Nigeria, and let them stay with their father’s people. Let me live my life, I am 36 years old, I can get married again.’ Give us out to my father’s family but she didn’t do that. She hustled, sweated for five children.”

All of this made Uriel really want to take care of his mom, even if it meant letting go of some things he loved. He just knew she deserved it.

“There’s been a time when before I entered the big brother house, I was in Nigeria for many years and I actually thought about giving up this dream of being an entertainer and just dedicating my life to looking after my mum. I didn’t care if I wasn’t going to get married, I didn’t care I wasn’t going to have children, I just wanted to do that for my mum. And however long it took for her to pass away; I’ll just dedicate my life to her. Even if I’m 40 or 50 and she goes, I know that I’ve done something.”

Her brothers were concerned and warned her not to chase her dreams just yet. They thought that with their mom gone, she might feel really sad or even worse. Since they believed she was getting older, they made a plan. They’d take turns looking after their mom, sharing the responsibility between the UK and Nigeria, so Uriel could still go after what she wants.

As Uriel shares the ups and downs of caring for her mom along with her everyday life, she admits it’s tough. But through it all, there’s one special thing that keeps her motivated.

“Like yesterday, she woke up twice to go to the toilet and she can’t really walk so I had to guide her, hold her and walk slowly. Sometimes, as a human being, when someone wakes you up in the morning, you’ll be angry. At 3am, she’ll wake you up. At 5 am in the morning, she’ll wake you up again that she wants to go to the toilet. She can wake you up two to three times in a night, but when I look at her face, I know it’s not her fault. If my mum has the power to get up and go, she will go. Why will she want to trouble her child?”

While she has been advised many times, to put her mom in an old people’s home or get a live-in somebody to care for her, Uriel says she’s uncomfortable with it.

“I said no. As long as I’m here with my mum, I will bath her, change her and do everything. Then, if somebody will just come, maybe come and go. Like now that I’m here with you, someone is with my mum, but as far as cleaning, bathing is concerned, I do everything for her. I don’t allow anybody to touch her food, I don’t like that.”

Even though the doctors at the hospital warned Uriel that her mom might lose her memory, she never thought it would happen so fast. And to top it off, her mom completely forgot that Uriel was her only daughter!. It all started after a lovely Sunday service. Uriel went into the kitchen to whip up something for her mom to eat. But when she came back, her heart dropped. Her mom didn’t even recognize her anymore!

“She screamed and said, ‘who are you.’ I thought she was joking but she was not. She was scared. She didn’t even allow me to come close to her. She started praying, shouting, then I realized that this is real. She does tend to forget sometimes. She’ll ask me, ‘are you my daughter and I’ll say yes.’ I had to show her pictures and that was it.”

“I realized that I’ve lost the mum I once knew. I realized that I’ve lost a part of my mum I could never get back. That strong woman that I knew, that woman that was fearless, agile, and prayerful. My mum can’t even pray now because the words don’t come to her head, you have to guide her through it. That woman is still my mum; I still see pieces of her but that woman have been replaced with somebody that is almost childlike, somebody that needs comfort, guidance, assistance, and care.”

Her mum’s illness, “I think sometimes, it would be easier to lose your parents and for them to die than to see your mother die slowly in front of you. That one is not a good thing. It’s like torture and you’re deprived of so many things.”

When she first arrived in Nigeria, she couldn’t wait to chase her dream of becoming a celebrity. But as the years went by without any real progress, it started to weigh her down. She knew she had the talent and the drive, but things just weren’t happening for her.

“My depression came from having my own insecurities, not being where I wanted to be, having men promising me houses and cars but because of my faith, I always said no and I never understood why I always say no. That thing where, this is not how you were raised was so strong and I couldn’t part away from it. I was just frustrated. I became depressed.”

“My mum was a widow at 36 with five children. So, imagine seeing my mum work hard, nobody ever gave my mum anything. My mum has been a widow since she was 36 and I’ve not seen any man enter my house, I’ve not seen any man say, Blessing, let me give you money for your children. So that is how I grew up. I grew up seeing a strong woman. I grew up seeing a woman hustle. That’s all I know. I don’t know about a man giving me something. All I know is if you want something, work hard for it. I don’t know about opening my legs to somebody for a range rover. Yes, it’s easy but that is not the lifestyle I know.”

“Some people loved it. People were like why am I putting my mum out there like that but at the end of the day I just believe my mum is my mum. If I choose to show her off the way I wanna show her off, that’s it. And why would I now look at her and discard her because I’m ashamed of her because of her illness. It doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t even do that. So, why after everything she’s done for me, all the struggles she struggled for me, why would I now be ashamed of my mum? ”

See photos below,

Uriel’s story encourages others to cherish their loved ones, acknowledging the struggles in their relationships, while courageously facing their unique challenges.

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