Pushing back tears and controlling her emotions better than her husband who had now retired to his room, Bukola Adebayo journeyed down memory lane as she recalled how normal her life was until last week.

She had grown to be referred to as ‘Mummy Doyin’, after her daughter, Adedoyin Adebayo, one of two students of Ojodu Senior Grammar School was killed by a speeding truck driver on Tuesday.

On Monday, our reporter climbed a 21-step staircase leading to the parlour of the Adebayos, where Adedoyin, an only child, used to live with her family.

Bukola emerged from one of the rooms where well-wishers had spent the better part of the morning consoling her. She wore the long face of a distressed mother.

“My daughter was a very brilliant girl; she promised me many things,” Bukola told FIJ. “She wanted to be an engineer. When going to school that morning, she said, ‘Mummy, come and hug me’. I had to come back and hug her. I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see my daughter [alive].”

“She was a very jovial girl, always laughing. In fact, she was friendly. She was a very brilliant and intelligent girl.”

Bukola told FIJ that after three years of marriage, she gave birth to Adedoyin on November 26, 2007.

She has, however, been unable to conceive since then. She said her daughter was proof that she was not barren, but her struggles with having another child made the loss all the more painful.

“I used to think, ‘At least I still have one; I’m not barren,’ but now, it is a great loss. I don’t have the money; I would have done IVF. I’ve tried everything,” she said.

Adedoyin Adebayo died after a truck knocked her and 13 other students down on Ogunnusi road, Ojodu, Lagos.

While she and Akpolebi Israel, a fellow student died, the other 12 students sustained injuries and are receiving treatment at the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital, Lagos.