Am just about to leave for work, my bag and lunch box is in the car(yes I have got to go with my lunch if I have to keep away from the burgers at the office canteen. Its more difficult to shed some pounds than it is to gain them!!!!)
Ok back to my story, the phone is ringing non stop on the kitchen cabinet where I must have left it when i went to pick my lunch box. 'It must be my colleague Julia calling me', i thought to myself.
Julia rides with me in my car every morning to work and she is never late meeting me at the bus stop. She keeps complaining of how i am the one with a car and yet come out late for work.(hahhaha) Julia is simply an early bird! I cant keep up with her and her early schedule.
Well, on this faithful morning, as i picked up my phone hurriedly from the kitchen cabinet and answered the call without checking the number, it wast Julia on the other end.
'He has destroyed me, I trusted him, can a man do this to his wife?, my heart is broken and she is my sister'! on and on went the voice on the other end crying really hard while trying to explain what happened.
You could hear from the voice that this person is hurt and cant handle what shock she has been through. Worst of all, i cant recognise the voice with all the crying going on.
My heart was racing fast, who is this, what has happened, did someone die?? I screamed at the top of my voice, 'please calm down, i cant get who you are or what you are saying to me''.
Then all of a sudden she kept calm, no more cries, you could tell she is tired from the hurt. She simply said 'is UJ'. UJ is my very close friend, I met her in college when her dad had just died in the northern part of the country following a crises, her mother and two other siblings(Ikem was her elder brother and Ebony her little sweet sister whom we took every where we went when were back on vacations)they all had ran back to the east for fear of their safety.
UJ had been shattered by her father's death so much that she failed a lot of course work in the 1st year in college.
Myself and lola began to help her pick up at her school work and to forget about the death of her father.
Two years after our graduation from college, UJ had married Lola's brother whom loved her so much back then in school and even helped pay for most of her tuition fee.
The marriage brought our bond of frendship(Lola, UJ and myself) closer. we were all her bridesmaids!! The wedding was so amazing. That was seven years ago from the day UJ called me wailing.
Trouble kicked in gradually in her marriage, three years after ,when she had not given birth to a baby. Her husband was an only son and his family wanted him to have a heir immediately, someone to handle the family's booming oil business! Its not uncommon in Nigeria really to have marriages break up for childlessness.Its almost as if people don't marry for love but for procreation!!!
What about adoption you ask?? Many families may not subscribe to it, instead the husband simply gets another wife.
UJ kept having issues in her marriage, her mother in-law was strongly opinionated and made life miserable for UJ. Lola tried her best at the beginning to get her mum to see that UJ is a great lady.
But those talks did no good and with time Lola gradually joined her family in persecuting UJ....
Two years ago UJ got promoted at work, (sometimes she has her husband's support on the whole child issue other times he was for his family and would support them to UJ detriment. As is she was the cause of their infertility!)
Anyway the promotion at work meant she needed to travel a little more often. Her husband had a job that also kept him away from home on some occasions, so UJ felt it was time to get a house keeper.
One day while i was at work she called me and asked if i had contacts for any young girls willing to do housekeeping jobs.
I said to her, 'i don't think it is wise to leave your house to an entire stranger. You wont be home most times and you cant tell what she can turn out to be.' That was exactly what my mum said to me' UJ replied, her mum had also advised her against getting an outside help that she may not be able to trust.
Her family advised her to speak with her kid sister Ebony and ask her to come live with her and help out with the house keeping since Ebony had just finished her college degree and was waiting to do her one year medical internship.
That was decided and UJ told her husband. He gave his consent for Ebony to come live with them. Ebony came over and i helped them speak to a doctor friend of mine who works in a government hospital and he helped Ebony get an internship at the hospital.
On this fateful morning, UJ was calling to break the news that Ebony was pregnant for her husband (UJ's husband) and she was 3 months gone in her pregnancy! Imagine my shock at this news.
Some few months back ,UJ had been away for a week on an official training. Looks like her husband and her kid sister got together at that time and hola! there is a baby on the way now.
UJ asked me what was best for her in the situation, but honestly i wasn't even sure what to advice her so i simply said, 'i think you need sometime alone to think this true and to get over the shock'
I brought her over to my house the next day cause i really felt she needed close supervision, i couldn't stop worrying that she may attempt suicide. So i Stayed with her for a week and in that whole week she refused to speak to anyone on the phone not even to me, she only said 'thanks' whenever i brought her food to her room.
You could touch the pains she was going through, it was heavy but i still think it wasn't just the fact that her husband cheated, is who he cheated on her with! my kid sister.
One month later her black days seemed to be over as she resumed work with full enthusiasm. She had taken a one month leave from work to get her head cleared and travelled to the UK for a vacation.
Anyway, just when i thought she was never getting her life back, she actually bounced back from her one month trip looking very radiant.
Am still not sure what changed her mind from getting a divorce but she said she forgave her husband and her sister and wasn't going to seek for a divorce but she decided to stay out of the house till the baby was born.
On the night Ebony went into labour, UJ's husband was away on a business trip and Ebony had no one to take her in to the hospital. So she called the one person in the world who had always shown her so much love and whom she betrayed! UJ rushed out of my sister's birthday party that night after she got the call from Ebony. The rains were heavy that day, i still remember it like it was yesterday! She rushed out to take Ebony to hospital for the baby's delivery.
Sadly UJ just did not live to see the baby come.
She picked Ebony up from the house and just a few blocks away from the hospital, the car crashed into a packed vehicle. She couldn't see clearly. She never really liked to drive at night! She only went because it was her kid sister who was in labour. The rains made her vision of the road worse that night and she crashed in badly into the parked vehicle. UJ died on the spot before help could get to them. Same night after hours of surgery, Ebony was delivered a baby boy.
Every year on the day she died, i still cant help put feel great pain in my heart for what happened to her. I just get the consolation from the fact that she died peacefully, had no grudges in her heart, she got herself free from the anger and pain that the betrayal had brought.
I think that makes her a hero, life and people she trusted wanted to throw thrash at her, but she got back right on her feet and just before she died i never seen her happier. It was like she knew she needed to let it all go and that's exactly what she did. She let the pains and anger go.
UJ is deeply missed by her friends, family and colleagues.
But i think she left them something.....she left them a hard lesson on LOVE & FORGIVENESS
