HIM, HER & I (The love Triangle) 26

PART 26

©Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde

I saw several baby shoes from Jadesola’s childhood. I recognized most of the shoes as my mother had bought them for her. I looked at some of them; they still looked beautiful and I wished Jadesola could still wear them, but it wasn’t her size anymore. I knew forcing her legs into it would not make sense. Even her hand could not enter the shoes. However, I stood regretting, wishing Jadesola could wear the shoes again…

I woke up from the dream. I instantly knew the meaning. God was telling me Papa was an old shoe I should forget about. He was my past… My phone rang. It was Mmesoma calling…

“Hello,” I said rousing myself from sleep.

“Timileyin; guess who I ran into yesterday?”

“Papa!” That was the first name I could think of…

“Papa…? No…, Bro Rufus…” I remembered Bro Rufus from way back; he was interested in me, but I never gave him a second thought because he was a stammerer, but Mmesoma was telling me he was the Vice Governor candidate of his town.

“But, how can he be? He is way too young,” I reasoned quietly within me as Mmesoma kept chatting.

“You know his father is neck deep in politics, and Bro Rufus said the political party his father had served for over 35 years decided to honor his father by giving his only son a ticket. Fortunately for Rufus, he was the last child and only son of his father. Timileyin, can you see that no one should be written off; I mean who would have imagined a great future for Bro Rufus…?”

All that kept ringing in my head was ‘Lost opportunities’. I had put my gaze on a man who I felt was the best, and in between that time, different greater opportunities had passed me by. I never considered or prayed about them back then, because I judged by appearance and human reasoning. After Mmesoma dropped, I sat down and took a pen and wrote out the names of men that had passed me by. Both the good and bad ones… I wrote 38 names. I decided to narrow it down to about 20 of them who were ‘Born Again Christians’… I took a step further and checked each of them online, including Bro Rufus and Bro Stephen; and these were my findings:

Bro Mathew had brown teeth back then, which was what disqualified him. As at the time I was checking him up, he was happily married to a very beautiful lady with a son. He was the manager at a transport company…

Bro Segun was in my department and he attended another fellowship. My issue with him was that he was poverty, personified. Though he was a neat person, he would sometimes wear only 3 shirts in a semester. The moment I located his social media page, I found my mouth wide open; he had changed; he was no longer thin; he was looking robust and fresh. He was also married, and from the pictures I saw, he had a catering business with his wife. They were living in an elite environment, which showed he was doing very fine…

Emeka, ‘the saliva bather’. This was the name I called him; whenever he was speaking to a person, he would always have spit popping out of his mouth. I couldn’t stand him. When I checked his profile, I was surprised to find out he was married to one of the younger students from the fellowship. They had just tied the knot 6 months earlier. I checked to see his work; from what I was able to gather, he was selling cars. He also looked happy…

Bro Isaiah was too much of a talkative for my liking, but on checking him up, I noticed he was doing so well as a public speaker with a large fan base. My eyes were tearing; I was weeping as I saw various opportunities I had lost.

The only person I couldn’t locate was Bro Stephen, my late mother’s choice. Maybe he wasn’t a social media person, I concluded on my own… I was still lost in my thoughts when I heard Iremide’s sound; it seemed like she was choking. The mother in me rose up as I raced to where I laid her on the chair. She was choking on something. I tried to put my hands down her throat to find out what it was, but nothing was there. I knew the next place to go was the hospital; I rushed her down to the clinic, but it was too late, Iremide had turned blue… I wept and wept… I had lost all. All was gone because I was trying to fix a good life for myself… God had shown me He was my creator and He wanted to show me I was not the person to try to fix myself up martially, but Him. Though Iremide was an abnormal child, she was still a part of me, so I wept at losing her. One would have thought her demise would be a relief to me, but far from it, for she was a part of me…

“Was there still hope for this life of mine?” I kept asking myself.

I buried Iremide by myself in Odi’s compound. I had called to inform him, and though he sounded unhappy, he told me he felt much at peace knowing that I was free at last. He told me he was sorry for all the trouble but that he was getting married soon.

Mmesoma came around to console me; Papa and Azuka came to visit me for the first time. They had never seen Iremide before so they didn’t know her condition; all I told them was that it was an attack. They asked about Odi, and I told them the half-truth, which was, Odi had left me for another woman. At this point, I just wanted to be alone. I knew I had been calling myself a Christian all this while but I never knew Christ. I wanted Papa out of my life based on the dream I had. I was no longer in the revenge plan. I just wanted God; but unfortunately, I had danced with the devil and he wasn’t ready to let go of me that easily…

To be continued in part twenty seven…

(Story copied from another source)