This thought has never been scary until I began to have children of my own. This story I am about to tell you, happened to my cousin.
I lived with my cousin, who we recently buried. You see, my cousin lost her only son…he went missing…long story. Let me break it down.
My cousin, Rachel, that was her name was just 10 years older than me, but I called her Aunty Rahel because she was like a mother to me. I began to live with her and her family when I moved to Abuja for my NYSC.
I became a sort of big sister to her two children. Dami a boy and Temi, a girl. They were 13 and 15 years old at that time.
Now, my auntie’s husband is one craze guy.
I got along well with him but like I said, he was a crazy guy.
He was one of those men who blamed his philandering on the excuse that he was created to procreate and fill the earth but the funny thing is, he never had children outside his marriage. I am not absolving him of his infidelity. I am recently married, and if my husband behaves this way, we are done. I will move out and on with my life.
Yeah. He was that crazy guy.
He moved with certain types of women that all looked like my aunty.
Whenever she caught him, he would say he was complimenting her by going for women who looked like her, small, dark and stylish…I swear. All the women I had caught him within Abuja…joints, hotels…name it. He was not even being careful at some point. But hereโs the thing, none of the girls or women got pregnant for him. You know, he brandished this point as if to say, my aunty had nothing to worry about, after all, she wouldn’t have to deal with women who had children for him.
Anyway, you can imagine this often made my aunty sad. That her husband was this cold and seemed to totally disregard her feelings.
Anyway, After my service I got employed by the oil serving company I served with, so I continued to stay with my aunty and her family.
That’s how I knew that like two or three years later, my auntie’s husband suffered a stroke.
We almost lost him. First, he was flown abroad for treatment. My aunty had to go and stay with him in the UK…both and their two children have British passports. After almost two years of aftercare…my aunty was flying in and out of the UK…because of her job and the children were in boarding school…they all eventually relocated abroad, so that she would be there to care for him.
Our family was surprised that my aunty would be so caring and loving to a husband who had all but play the field for years.
But thatโs marriage for you, I guess.
Anyway, my auntieโs husband recovered. Well, not fully but with care in the UK, he was able to start working from home, abroad. My aunty too got a job and their children settled in their school, too.
We thought all was well with them.
Two years ago, on one of those calls to my auntie, she said they were going for summer on a boat cruise. She said her husband wanted them to kind of remarry. You know. D their church wedding all over again and start afresh.
I was happy because, to me, this meant the man had finally come to his senses. Perhaps also, with him almost dying and being nursed back to life, he felt that he owned my auntie, some sense of responsibility.
The thing is, my auntie did not believe he was genuine. I guess the years of his infidelity had eaten too deeply for her to believe anything he said to her. Plus, she felt that if he hadn’t almost died, he would have continued with his ways…
Anyway. They went on the cruise with their children, who at this time were young adults.
I do not have the full details of what happened during the cruise, I know that by the time they made land, two weeks after being at sea, they said Dami, who at that time was just 21 years old, had accidentally fallen into the sea and was never found!
I kid you not!
How did it happen…it was an accident.
Who was there, every one of his family and other guests on the deck…one minute he was there, on the deck, the next, swallowed by the choppy Mediterranean Sea abi na Atlantic Ocean. Gone, Dami was gone, with no trace, no body floating, and nothing.
My auntie went mad!
She insisted the cruise ship look for her son…I heard they did but as you know, she is a woman whose son is missing. She is expected to act the way she did.
My uncle on the other hand was reported to have resigned himself to fate…too quickly, for my auntie I think, and of course, this tore apart a relationship they were trying to patch up.
My aunty was inconsolable as you would expect. She refused to get off the cruise ship, threatened to sue them, and began to initiate it but she was not normal again. You do not even have to be a mother to understand my auntie’s pain. Her trauma, her shattered mental health.
She refused to accept that Dami was likely dead…who can survive being in the ocean for more than two weeks…but because there was no body, nothing floated…you know, to show that he had died, my aunty believed a miracle would happen which was why she was mad at her husband for settling with the cruise liner and signing that his son had died by accident.
Let’s not talk about insurance because I am not even concerned about that. I am concerned about my aunty.
When it seemed that…this is like almost one year after the incident, when it seemed that her sonโs body was forever lost…that he was never coming home by any form of miracle. She turned on her husband!
She blamed him for suggesting the cruise, she blamed him for looking away at something or someone when he was meant to have been talking to their son at that time, and she blamed him for accepting their loss too soon.
She was like a woman who could not be consoled.
She stopped working. She stopped calling or receiving my calls…I then began to talk to her daughter, Temi, when I needed updates.
Did they care for her in the UK? Of course, they did. She was in the hospital for a long while and was seeing a therapist…nothing worked.
You see, my aunty is dead. She just heaved and died!
Almost two years after her son went missing…or died. She just sat on the bed, placed her hands across her chest, heaved…like her daughter Temi described to us the family and died!
S for her husband…he seemed indifferent …you know thatโs how I see him…
Our family is not happy with him. They are accusing him of being responsible for my auntie’s death…they are saying Auntie, never for one day, enjoyed her marriage, that she was a slave to her husband…
I donโt know, jare. God only knows.