I need someone to help me out of this mess!

Dear Monica,

I need you to help me out of this terrible situation that poverty boxed me into. I am sad; I feel empty and used. Initially, I felt I had to endure because of my children, but as each day passed by, I became convinced that I don’t have to do this. I have a better choice and should explore, but I don’t know where to start from and I really will not want to offend my sister and her husband. Sincerely, I need a way out.

I am 38, a widow with two boys; 12 and nine years old to take care of. My elder sister and I lost our mother when we were young; I was just 11 when she died. We are from a polygamous family where every man for himself was the norm.

After our mother’s demise, being her two surviving children, our aunt pleaded with our father to allow him take us with her. He released us to her without much ado. That was how we started our journey into survival.

My sister couldn’t continue school because she had to hawk goods for our aunt and also make money so that I could  go to school. She is eight years older than me; this is because our mother lost the two children born after her.

To cut my story short, it was while hawking bread that she met the man who eventually became her husband. Let us say it was posterity. She had gone to sell bread and butter at mechanics’  shed. Uncle Bode came to fix his car. He became interested in her because of the way she successfully rebuffed the advances of the owner of the mechanic workshop and the fact that she spoke good English.

After much enquiry and doing the needful, my sister became his wife. Although he is very much older than my sister; he treated us very well. I learnt he lost his wife and two sons in a ghastly motor accident three years before he met my sister. Everyone around him had convinced him to remarry earlier but he always told them that he would do so. When he eventually did, my sister and I were welcomed into his family with open arms.

He made sure my sister went back to school and also gave her good money to start a business in fabrics. Before long, she began to travel out of the country to buy fabrics for sale and her business became very successful.

He also treated me like his daughter. He sent me to the best schools. He always joked that I am his first born from my sister. I had a beautiful and blessed time with them. I forgot the tears and sufferings we went through when my mother died.

I finished school and started to work at one of the new generation banks, courtesy Uncle Bode.

After some years, I met Funsho, my late husband. He was a businessman and I was his account officer. We started a relationship that led to marriage. I loved him so much but my parents (Uncle Bode and my sister) never approved of him.

Both of them always said he was too sweet mouthed and that his sweet talks would get him into trouble. I never saw that in him, all I saw was a hardworking man who was afraid of poverty.

Continues next week.