MISTAKES! MISTAKES!
Growing up as a kid in the city of Akure has always been a major highlight of my life. I made friends with a lot of kids in the neighbourhood. My father was a Lawyer, my mum was a University lecturer. During the post colonial era in Nigeria, when the millitary government was ruling the country, my father was one of the few human right activist who was detained on January 1st 1983 a few hours after a palace coup was staged and a sitting democratically elected president was sent parking. My father went on to spend ten years behind the bars, while my mum as a result of the trauma lost her job. To make ends meet, she did a lot of menial jobs, even with her certificate, she slept with men for money, did all sort of things. But, they were good in our sight then, because, so far we were able to eat, then every other thing becomes unimportant.
My dad died in jail eleven years after his arrest and then, I was about saying goodbye to my teenage life and being the curious boy that I was, I checked through his books and saw a quote which reads;
“All my life, I have never made a mistake until I got married to my wife.”
Since, the quote was written by my father, I thought the quote was talking about him. I took it against my mother, demanded answers from her. When she couldn’t give me any, I ran away from home, went to Lagos to work and make money.
Seventeen years later, I was thirty six years and I met a beautiful lady of twenty eight. We got talking and after a few months, we started going out. I was comfortably okay and could within a day donate one million naira at five functions.
When the time came for me to meet her people, we travelled to Akure and behold, my mother was supposed to be my mother-in-law and the girl in question was my blood sister.
That day, my mum explained the reason behind the quote I saw many years ago and I realised that my mum actually made my father a smoker and a heavy drinker, which was what cut his life short while in prison. Truely, my dad only made a mistake which was getting married to my mum.
In the sight of my friends, they said, my running away from home was a mistake on my part, but many years later, I realised, I was right afterall, but I had made the same mistake my father made, which was getting married to a woman you know little about.
Now, I can write a quote of making just one mistake all my life, the only difference was, my supposed to be wife was not yet my wife, but she was three months gone and my sister was gonna give birth to my baby. A taboo the elders called it.
It is with great regret I wrote this, I have lost it, I have failed, what else am I living for?
I just have to take my life myself which will take me a step ahead of my father who made one mistake, while I made two.
–THE END–
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