MY JOURNEY 3

 I wondered what other trick life could ever play on me.


Hope was not glad to see me, especially not in the circumstances of our meeting. She was no longer hope, she was now Celia and she was rich. It was her money Daniel had been showering on me. She walked me out of her house, and told me never to come back. Life was so cruel. I cried all the way back to my hostel, cursing the day I was born.




Months later, I was supposed to graduate, but I had a pending course. That gave me one more year of suffering. During that period, I decided to check on sister Faith. I went back to their house, and was told they had moved out. I got another address, and there I was informed that my sister had passed on, during child birth years ago, but that the child a girl, survived. I asked where I could find her husband, and they said he ran off upon hearing of her demise. The child had been in an orphanage.


I didn’t know what to do. I went to the orphanage, and saw the girl, a spitting image of Peace. The matron was shocked at how I was able to pick her out of the crowd of children without help. I knew that I had to take care of the child, so I explained my predicament to the matron and we reached an arrangement. I was introduced to Blessing, who was three years old and I went back to school.
I had a new reason to live and I decided to turn things around, in order to give Blessing a good life.

I got a small corner close to a market, and I began practising my trade. I worked tirelessly days and far into the night sometimes. I saved all the money I could get. Then I got a bigger space, and bought one hair drier and made the place look a little more like a saloon. In eight months, I employed my first worker.

When it was time to go back to school for exams, I sat for the exams and I passed. I became a graduate. I didn’t want to for for nysc, because of my business. I wondered how I was going to manage. I was determined not to go back to living a life of uncertainties.

The NYSC list came out, and I was posted to Lagos. I packed my bags and went off to camp. On the third day of camp, I was on my phone when I heard a group of people laughing and someone said “this Andrew is just a clown” I do not know what made me turn around, but I did and I was staring at a copy of my father. I stood transfixed. It took me three days to pick up the courage to approach him. When I did, I became friends with him, he was twenty four years old.


The day before the end of camp, I told him who I was. He was shocked. He couldn’t remember a thing. I told him to ask his mother and few hours later, he came to me saying his mum wanted to speak to me on phone. I listened to my mother call me a liar from the pit of hell, and rain insults on me on speaker phone, to the hearing of her beloved only child Andrew. The next day, we left camp.



Two days after we left camp, I turned thirty. That night, I cried an ocean into my pillow. I wondered what shape my life was taking, I wondered why life was so unfair to me. I started work at a radio station where I was posted and I was given a room in their staff quarters. I decided to bring Blessing to stay with me in Lagos. That was one of the wisest decisions I ever took. I enrolled her in a school close to my office, and my boss allowed her stay with me after school until the close of work. I told everybody who asked that she was my daughter.


 True to her name, my daughter Blessing brought blessings into my life. I was favoured everywhere I went, and everybody doted on my daughter. We had a guest on one of our shows, and as the errand girl, which was basically what they wanted to turn me into, I was asked to pick up lunch for the guest and my boss. It was a health show, and when I went in to deliver the food, I realised the guest was a young and dashing doctor.


The next morning, said young and dashing doctor was at my desk, to ask me to have a lunch date with him. I turned him down. He came in every morning unfailingly for two months and my answer remained the same. Then one morning, he didn’t show up. I was alarmed. I had to ask around for his number. I had gotten used to bantering with him every morning. I wondered what had happened to him. I finally got his number from our personnel manager, and I was dialling it on my way to my office.

I opened my door, just as he was bringing out his phone from his pocket to answer my call. He looked at his screen, smiled and said “Sorry I am late”. We were married nine months later, after my youth service.


I couldn’t believe the turn around my life took. Richard walked into my life, and never looked back. He accepted Blessing, and opened his doors to all of me. I didn’t hold back and even in moments when I thought surely he would be overwhelmed, he was like a rock. His family accepted me and for once I experienced a peaceful and coordinated family life. I thought life couldn’t get better but knowing how my life had been, I always anticipated something bad.

Two years after our marriage, I was yet to conceive. I thought about the abortion from my past, and my husband made sure we ran through every test possible, and we were certified ok. I became really worried. Richard never failed to remind me that we had a daughter already. I was not consoled. I wanted to give him a child of his own.

I received a call from a strange number one Saturday morning. I picked, and it was Andrew asking me where he could meet me. I wondered what he wanted to meet me for, but he insisted on seeing me physically. I went with Richard to the restaurant where we agreed to meet. We waited for over ten minutes, when Andrew walked in with a frail looking woman. They sat down, and I stared into the eyes of the woman who bore me, abandoned me and denied me. I walked out. I couldn’t bear the hatred I felt for her at that moment. Richard convinced me to at least give her an ear, so we went back in.



She told me of how she came to Lagos, instead of going to her village. How she met a wealthy man, who couldn’t have children of his own, she married him and they raised Andrew as his son and kept up the charade even after his death. She apologised for denying me that day in camp and asked of my siblings. I told her of how she destroyed our lives by leaving, and killed Peace by not taking her along. I blamed her for all the misfortunes I faced in life. I cursed her for all the tears she had made us shed while she lived in plenty and I told her I never wanted to see her again. My mother died two weeks later, and I never had the chance to take back my words.



I got pregnant in my third year of marriage and gave birth to a baby boy, I named him Peace after my sister. I finally met my elder brother John. He was in the military like our father and had been, and had gone on various peace keeping missions. I was very proud of him, and he had a beautiful family. I met him by chance at a store in Dubai, where he was on vacation with his family.




I had two other children after my first son, I run a business empire and my family life has not suffered. I put my family first, and still have a fulfilling career. I have won numerous awards, and run an NGO that counsels children from broken homes and deals with abuse of women and children. I and my remaining siblings might not be as close as we would have been if our family had stayed together, but we talk from time to time, and attend family functions together.


In all of this, my husband has been my bedrock. He stuck with me through my recurring night mares, to my hilarious fears of him towing the path of my father, or turning into a beast over night. He has been my best friend, and together we raised three wonderful kids that have given us five grandchildren so far.



My life might not be perfect, but it is fulfilling. I no longer have unanswered questions, and I am a better person than the devil planned. Life is better when we are determined to live. If I could survive, you can survive also.

Life would throw you curve balls. Expect them, feel bad and alone and unloved, but only for a little while. Then dust yourself off and hit the road road running. You will survive if you see survival as the only option on your plate.

I survived.


                                                   .................. THE END...................





LIFE IS A CHOICE MY FRIENDS
SO CHOOSE WISELY
ENOUGH SAID

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR WONDERFUL READERS. MAY THE JOY AND CELEBRATION OF CHRISTMAS NEVER CEASE IN YOUR HOME.  MAY GOD ALWAYS GIVE YOU REASONS TO BE MERRY.

                                                     IVY AND OPUS