Letters To My Ex - What I Wish I Told You
!by@Anee_Uche****
My dearest Jaiye,
I haven’t lost a lot of people to death, so I never realized how final death really is. Watching that casket shut your motionless body in forever and get lowered into the ground was too much for me to take. I had to walk away from my seat at the back of the tent, sit in my car and cry. It was so strange seeing you so lifeless.I saw Anita. She was the perfect widow. Beautiful and barefaced, with her custom-made hat and diamonds at her ears. She looked so beautiful and tragic, weeping her eyes out. You couldn’t have chosen a better wife. Mrs Secretary to the Federal Government. She was a First Lady in her own right.It’s weird that I’m writing this, now, when you are lying dead, six feet below. I don’t even know what I hope to accomplish by writing it. I just know that seeing you lifeless that day made me realize the mistakes I’d made. I let too much time go by. But I was a pompous coward, and so I waited till it was too late to do what I should have done all those years ago. Now I’m here, a heart full of regret, writing all the things I wish I’d told you when I had the chance.I used to get so angry when I thought of how things ended between us. I hated you and I hated your family. I never opened any of your letters. I didn’t want to have anything to do with you. When I heard the news of your death, that changed. I went to the wooden box I hid behind my wardrobe and extracted your letters. All fifteen of them. I wonder why I let rage blind me so much. I should’ve read the letters. Maybe we both wouldn’t be here.You begged me to come back to you in your letters. You said you loved me and wanted to marry me. You wanted me beside you. You never stopped loving me. Your last letter was dated the week before you married Anita. You asked me to come to you if I still loved you. That you’d cancel the wedding and be with me. I never read it, so I never came. I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t been so blind. I read them with a broken heart. I didn’t stop crying and that’s when I knew I had to write this. A final letter to you.I wish I’d told you all the things your mother had said. Truth is, Jaiye, I was pregnant. I came to your house to tell you the news. Your mother wouldn’t let me see you. I told her the good news and she told me to get rid of it. That a filthy sewer rat like me would never be with her son. You were destined for great things, she said. Your political career was just taking off. You didn’t need me ruining your chances with a bastard. What were the chances the baby was really yours, she asked?She threw money in my face and told me to abort the child. I simply side-stepped her and tried to make my way into the house. She told me you didn’t want to see me and had security throw me out of the house.I tried calling you but all I ever got was your secretary whoalways hung up on me. I went to your house but I was always thrown out. I considered aborting the baby, but I just couldn’t so I kept the child.Yes, Jaiye. We have a child together. A son. Iloabuchi. It means my enemies are not my God. Abuchi is your spitting image. He looks so much like you. He talks like you too. And he is so brilliant. It was hard, raising him on my own, seeing you on the television, knowing my son had a father who didn’t want him, who didn’t love him. Or so I thought.I told everyone who asked that Abuchi’s father was dead. And you were. You were dead to me from the moment I left your house and decided to have him. I tried my best toshield him from the truth. He had such an inquisitive mind. He wanted to know about his father, he wanted pictures; and every year as he grew older the lie became harder and harder to maintain. I stuck to my guns though. I wouldn’t have my son thinking he was a bastard child.Our son is twenty years old now. He is studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. You would be so proud of him. He is so brilliant, so kind, so generous, so respectful. He is a gentleman through and through. And he has faith. Never have I seen such unwavering belief in God in this corrupt country. Abuchi believes he can make a difference. I guess he got that from you. I think I’m too jaded. I just don’t want him getting killed over money like you were.It’s so strange, referring to you in past tense. I haven’t reconciled with the fact that you’re not alive anymore. I pined for you, secretly. For many years. Eventually, I found a man who was worthy of my love. His name is Nedu. I married him six years ago. He is a good man. You would like him. He takes care of me and loves Abuchi like his own. And in him, Abuchi has found the father figure he never knew.I’m conflicted as to what to tell our son now. The truth? Well, his father is dead now. Does it make any difference?I’m not sure. I’ll figure it out.I also wonder what would have happened if I’d told you all this before it was too late. Would we have been together? Maybe. But what’s fine is done and we can’t change the past.Can I ask you to do something? Watch over him for me, please. Protect our son. He is my everything. I just want him to be safe and happy. That’s all. So please watch him.Thank you.I hope you have found peace wherever you are. Hopefully,we don’t meet again soon. I still have a few good decades left in me.
All my love,
Chika
