My fiancé died one day to our wedding.
He just slept and never woke up. He was hale and hearty; he had no sickness, complained of no pain. He was full of life when he went to bed that night. We had lived together for one year but a week before the wedding, I had to move out to stay at my aunty’s place. You know what they say about a bride leaving from her father’s house, I couldn’t leave for the church from Dennis’s place, our place. But we spoke at length on the phone the night before.
I was already sleepy while he was still talking and telling me his plans for the next day. Today, I wish I hadn’t slept off. I wish I had stayed late, talking to him. Maybe whatever killed him wouldn’t have met him in his dreams, maybe he would have slept differently and still be alive.
And maybe, maybe I am responsible for my Fiancé’s death!
I come from a poor home. My parents couldn’t raise me so they sent me early on to live with my aunty in Ibadan. But before I left, before I was even old enough to know my left from my right, my parents had a friend an old widower who always called me his wife. He would put me on his lap and promise to pay my school fees and when I got old enough, he would marry me.
It was a joke. Though on a number of occasions, he bought me stuff; he gave things to my parents. They showed me, saying, “see what your husband brought o”.
I don’t think my parents took him seriously because to the best of my knowledge, they had no formal discussion leading to an agreement that I would marry him. He was my father’s age mate and how old was I? About six or seven years old when this ‘marriage’ business started.
On the other hand, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe my parents consented for a while. Like I said, my folks were poor. They couldn’t take care of me and my brother, we are just two children they had, you would think as farmers, they should be able to get by but I was sent to my aunty when I turned 12. I was still in primary school. I was a real village girl.
My aunty too never told me anything about my parents betrothing me to any man. Aunty was my mother’s cousin. She had no children of her own but was a big trader in Ibadan. She took me in and sent me to school. She was a textile trader and I learned the business from her.
I had lived in Ibadan for three years when news came that my parents were murdered on the farm; they were slaughtered like chickens. The story is that they slept overnight in the hut at the farm and some thieves came to steal yams and were surprised to find them there and killed them. To date, the police never found the so-called thieves.
I went with my aunty for the burial and she brought back my brother to live with us in Ibadan. My father’s people took over every other thing and I basically lost touch with them afterwards.
You know my aunty is from my mother’s side, not my father’s so you would think my father’s people would want to lay claim on us, my brother and I as the surviving children of their late brother, nobody wanted us, so it was easy to just follow my aunty back to Ibadan and for a long time, that chapter was closed.
Now, I come from the east, I am not a Yoruba person but I speak Yoruba fluently, so does my aunty, only my brother still struggles with it.
Anyway, years after my parents’ death, I finished school at the Poly and as you know, I had a boyfriend, a Yoruba boy that we had planned to get married after service. He was Muslim, his name was Ibrahim. Very decent human being.
We were waiting for call up letter when I got a call from a school friend that Ib had been identified among victims killed under a building that collapsed while they were taking shelter from the rain. He died before they rushed him to UCH!
My world stopped. Ib was a man! Forget about what you hear of Yoruba guys. He was everything to me. I cried harder than I did for my parents. But Ib was gone. After my service, I came back to Ibadan, I served in Kogi State.
I was in my aunty’s shop when this elderly man wearing all white; white cap, white danshiki, white trousers but no shoes and carrying a white horsetail…you know those Osun priests…yes. That day, he stopped in front of our shop and asked for water. I gave him pure water from a cooler in the shop.
He began to speak in Yoruba. He told me I had been betrothed to someone other than the ‘husband’ that I just lost. By ‘husband’, I knew he meant Ib. Though we were not even engaged but you know, once you are courting someone, Yoruba people will call the person your husband or wife.
But I am a Christian, I refused to fall for all these divinations and incantations from this priest. So I told the Baba, I am not betrothed to anyone. You know, I just didn’t want to admit to him about anything because that is how they will trap you.
The Baba just drank the water and told me that if I don’t break the betrothal, my ‘husbands’ will keep dying. I rejected it, that is not my portion!
I didn’t want to entertain any more talk with the Baba, so I politely told him that I had an errand to run. The man thanked me and left. This incident happened three years before I met Dennis!
I met Dennis about four years after Ib died. I just couldn’t bring myself to settle with any guy after Ib, it seemed no guy measured up.
But I met Dennis when I came to Lagos to attend a wedding of one of my old classmates. Dennis was one of the groomsmen and I was one of the bridesmaids. Incidentally, Dennis also lived in Ibadan, Bodija side. That’s how we connected and the rest, as they say, is history…we were a couple for three years before we decided on marriage.
I never connected anything to anything until Dennis died in his sleep a day to our wedding. I remembered the Baba Osun, I remember what he told me.
I remember my father’s friend who had called me his wife for years. I remember everything but where do I start? How do I cancel a betrothal I knew nothing about? Where is the man, sef? Is he dead after all these years? Is he alive? What if my parents were murdered because I was sent to my aunty in Ibadan? Even my aunty is clueless.
Who do I run to for help or is this how the men I plan to marry will die like flies?
(series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)