WHO KNOWS TOMORROW??---------A TRUE LIFE STORY

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Sometimes when I see how badly people are maltreated, I get sad. Many behave like monsters, as if they never knew God is watching and so take pleasure in maltreating and subduing others especially the most vulnerable. Often times I like to act and come to the rescue of the victim, but to be honest, sometimes I get scared of helping, owing to the area I live and the world we are in general, that many have lost their lives poking into other people’s affairs, so I just pray and wish that God brings his judgement instantly

This is a short story (a real life story) about a boy whose father impregnated his mother and denied the pregnancy. The woman as I gathered, was disowned by her parents because they felt the girl (or lady) didn’t only bring them shame by getting pregnant before wedlock but also could not identify who the father of “what she had in her stomach” was. The baby was going to be a bastard.

Somehow the woman survived on her own without her family but a few friends and sympathizers helped her out. She was at their mercy. On several occasion her parents had disapproved of the help given by family friends and had fought neighbors, asking them to allow the girl to suffer since she want to bring a bastard to their home. Through much struggles, sometimes without food, sometimes without transport to hospital for ante-natal care, this lady managed to bring the baby to term. Finally she gave birth to her baby. A beautiful baby boy (beautiful allowed for boys right?)

Did you know that the woman tried to escape and flee the hospital, abandoning the baby? She was caught trying to jump over the back fence of the hospital by one of the security guys who had gone to the back of the hospital to put on the generator. That was how she was brought back and guarded until the day she was discharged from the hospital. Even that day of her discharge, it was a doctor who asked that her bill be passed to him. So somehow, she was just at the mercy of people.

Many years later, this lady was blessed with a man, a husband who was ready to marry her and adopt her son. The lady was glad and they got married. That is where I got to known her, all I said above were stories she herself told us. Us? Yes us. How?
She was married and moved into the same compound with my family. (You know, face-me-I face-you- house).

You needed to see the way she treated the boy. Her husband, who was supposed to hate the boy, loved the boy so much. But she, who was the real mother of the boy, hated him with a passion. She transferred all the aggression to the boy because of what she suffered. According to her, the boy reminded her of the man who got her pregnant and ran away.

FLASH BACK OF THE ILL TREATMENT THE BOY RECEIVED
1). Every Christmas he cooks the meals. After making sumptuous meal with chicken, he was given the head of the chicken

2).He does not eat more than once a day except if the neighbors give him food secretly

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3). One day, as he was pounding yam, he got so tired and hungry. He lacked the strength to pound well. The wicked mother who came to check the yam if ready, found the yam with lumps. She gave the boy a deafening slap and he fainted. Even while he fainted, he accused the boy of pretending and attempted to hit the boy with the pestle. But a male neighbor stopped her. As she started dragging the pestle with the man, the man gave her a hot slap. The man beat her up, not minding whether she happens to be someone’s wife. The other neighbors came to the res cue of the boy and revived him.

4).It was no news that each time she beats the boy; she has already stored pepper that she rubs on the boy’s eye.

1. The boy never went to a good school, his uniforms were all torn and he puts on no underwear. Ah, am moved to tears. The woman was really mean. ‘What about her husband,’ you may ask? Her husband was never around. He works and lives in another town and comes home on weekends. His family of seven (7) lives in the same compound with me. The boy’s younger siblings have no respect for him and he wouldn’t dare to disciple them.

2. Several nights even during the rain, this boy would be driven out to sleep in the cold. He could never do anything right by his mum. She looks for every opportunity to punish and treat him like an animal.

The ill treatment was so much that the neighbors including my parents had to inform the landlord that if he doesn’t quit that family, the woman will kill the boy some day. That was how they left the compound.

Even the day they moved, after packing everything, she asked the boy to go and throw their refuse bin away in a refuse dump nearby, before the boy came back, the woman ordered the vehicle to move. When he came back, he found that they left already; thank God he knew the address of the house they were moving into.

WHY THIS STORY NOW?
I told you it is a real life story. It happened some 18yrs ago in Delta State, Nigeria. (My state). A few months ago, I travelled home and ran into a man. He was a huge, handsome and a “big Uncle”(like my kids will say). The man called me by my maiden name. I looked at him but couldn’t recognize him. I wondered if I ever met him before. So I begged him to tell me who he was after he had mentioned the names of all my siblings and asked of their whereabouts. I could not believe my ears when I heard his name. He told me, he is the one that was maltreated so much in the same compound with me, some years ago.
Readers I couldn’t bear it. I hugged him so closely and burst into tears.
Is this you? I asked.
“Yes it is me.” He replied.
I THANK God you survived; I managed to say, amidst tears.
“Yes, I am alive.”He said.

Without wasting time, I asked him: Where is your mother? You don’t want to know his reply, do you? I couldn’t believe it but he said: “She is in my house”. Your house? His house? What would she be doing there? She can’t be there! I heard myself say but the guy told me that frankly his mum was in his house. Her husband died of diabetes and she is down with stroke.

All her precious children abandoned her, two travelled abroad and never sent words home, one became a pastor, the girls moved in with their boyfriends and somehow, not having much to support their mum with. In short the only successful one around and available was the ill treated one. He told me he is a big time electronics dealer and is married with his family too. HE LIVES INN HIS PERSONAL HOUSE. His mother upon seeing that no one cares about her, sent people to beg and the boy forgave her. She is there in the man’s house now.

LESSON
Life! Who knows tomorrow? No matter what you may face now, if God has your back, nothing the enemy does will succeed. More so, whatever God has ordained or written down, or prophesied about you, nothing can remove, clean or change it.
Never you despise any one today, you may be needing them tomorrow. That part of the towel you used in cleaning your bottom today may turn out to be the part you are using to clean your face tomorrow.

Do not despise those who helped to hold the ladder when you are climbling up, you still needs them when coming down.
Am so happy the boy has become a man, am so happy he is successful, but I wonder why he forgave the mother.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? WOULD YOU HAVE FORGIVEN HER? SHE BEHAVED AS IF SHE KNEW WHAT WILL HAPPEN TOMORROW? WHO KNOWS TOMORROW?

KINDLY UPVOTE AND COMMENT AND RESTEEM.

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