A Life For A Life

I can’t tell you why he’s sitting there, but I’ll try.

You see, the Okafors had just turned him down for the umpteenth time. He knew he had no other alternatives, no one else to turn to, no other recourse. He was entirely at their mercy, but he didn’t seem to care. He just sat there, head hung low, deep in thought, the saddest of expressions on his face.

He was a man whose heart was breaking, with no way to pick up the pieces.

You would feel incredibly sad if you looked at him, without even knowing why, and you’d want to share some of the burden he almost seemed to carry physically.

Jacob was trying to get the Okafors to give him their son to adopt – a case that was lost before it had had a chance to start.

Their gratitude didn’t move him. He needed his rock back. He lived for that rock.

I’ll give you a brief history.

She was young, he wasn’t ready. She tried to abort, and failed. She had the baby and snuck out of the hospital 2 days later, leaving the infant behind. It was that or her parents were going to cut her off and kick her out permanently. He pretended during the whole time that neither she nor the pregnancy existed.

5 years later, they met again, and discovered that they were still in love. So they mended their fences as all lovers do, got married a year later, and started to look for the abandoned child.

The day they came for Peter, Jacob was blissfully unaware. He was drawing animals in the stand with a stick, while Peter would identify them and try to draw his own, very funny imitation. He noticed a couple walk into the compound and greet. Where the greeting had been cordial initially, the temperature dropped somewhat when they saw the boy.

The ‘pleasantries’ were over quickly, the facts established, and a date was set. His wife cried all night that day, and all day the next day, until he had to send her to her sister’s place for a week, knowing Peter would be gone by the time she returned. The Okafors made it clear that they did not expect any resistance, as they would not like to spoil what could be a good friendship between the families by resorting to legal means.

That was when Jacob began what I like to call his pilgrimages. He travelled to the home of the Okafors with his brothers to plead for more time, against his father’s advice.

Too soon, it was time for Peter to move to his biological parents’ home.

For Jacob, it wasn’t that he Hauwa had been unable to have a child for 15 years. He loved his wife more than life itself and their childlessness had never driven a wedge between them.

It wasn’t that he thought the Okafors were unfit parents and should have been jailed for the way they treated the pregnancy. Or that he didn’t think they were ready yet to raise a child.

He thought these things were true, yet that wasn’t what drove him to ask for the impossible.

It was that Peter saved his life, literally.

He’d had severe clinical depression for 2 years, and did not seek help for it because he thought that his symptoms were normal reactions to his worsening financial situation, and a harsher economy. He blamed it on the weather, on bad people, on bad news – it was always bad news on the radio and anything else he felt wasn’t going right. It got worse steadily, until, one day, in desperation and frustration and disgust at himself, he decided to end it. The wife he loved more than life itself was better off married to someone else more deserving.

He went to work at the hospital as usual, and started cleaning. Uncharacteristic of him since his illness started, he had everything planned out. He would finish work, and find a quiet time and place during the day to drink a cup of bleach. He would lock the door so that they couldn’t get to him and try to save him. He figured an hour would be enough for the liquid to work. He was just a janitor. He would be replaced by tomorrow.

At about 9.30a.m., there was a commotion on the 3^rd floor above him, in the maternity ward. The news spread round – the young mother – yes, the one who cried throughout and after delivery; she had turned tail and fled, leaving her baby behind. Purely out of curiousity, he went upstairs to take a look at the unloved infant, thinking that the boy must have been born deformed or worse.

He couldn’t believe how perfect this baby was. Something in his heart broke.

Moments later, when he heard the Chief Matron discussing what to do with the baby, he stepped forward and said ‘I will look after him’. When he insisted that he was serious about it, the matron passed on the news to the hospital management. When he closed for the day at 6p.m., he had the bundle in his arms, and a strict instruction to report the next day with his wife for proper guidance on care for the child.

On what should have been the last day of his life, he had found his purpose.

Jacob’s recovery was remarkable, and the first day Peter smiled at him, he wept tears of joy. Hauwa was thankful that her husband was back to his normal self, and for the little baby who had brought so much happiness to her as well. Though unspoken, it was as if they had both agreed never to mention the boy’s past or the possibility of that past coming to haunt them. Every day in the country, a child is abandoned in some hospital. Many of them never get a chance at having a home and end up street urchins or Lord only knows what. His past ceased to exist for them. They were all the parents Peter would ever need.

Even though Jacob got some assistance from the hospital, he put in extra hours to make extra money. Then he decided Peter needed a father he could be proud of, and enrolled himself in nursing school.

A short week after his final exams, his world had been snatched away from him because someone decided to come to their senses. Why couldn’t they just walk away like the parents of the thousands of homeless, unwanted children on the streets?

Sadly, he noted, they seemed to have cleaned up their act. Mrs. Okafor seemed a little more mature than she looked and acted 6 years ago.

And he? He felt lost.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. It was his darling Hauwa. She had no more tears, only stubborn determination in her eyes.

‘Come, my love. Let’s go. I didn’t want to tell you until I was very sure of it. We’re pregnant’.