Whatever It Takes

Episode 4

Every one needs a shoulder to cry on, a pillar to lean on and if the people who are supposed to
push you to be a better person, do not inspire you, but take pride and joy in demeaning you and
cursing you then probably those people shouldn’t be in your lives in the first place.

Words have a tendency to scar people forever.

Someone may forgive but not forget. There is
always a reminder of bad things uttered that create a very bad atmosphere. Most of the times
people are reminded about their hurts when they hear another person demean another in their
presence and the Pandora box of past hurts zoom in and haunt them like their own shadow.

The worst case scenario is when a family member rips you apart instead of putting you back together .

A stranger may tell you hurtful words but they won’t hurt even half as much as coming from a
family member.

When aunt Jane charged into our little yard like a rabid dog I couldn’t help but wonder how uncle
George would sit by and watch his wife spit venom on his own brother and his wife. She was the
hurricane that was hell bent to destroy everything in our way . Even if we were not doing as well as
they were, they made it clear that we were not welcome in their house. We lived like poor people
despite my father having a brother who was doing so well in the business sector with a vampire
nurse of a wife.

I had heard of men who had become spineless after marriage but I never imagined I could witness
one from our own family. Aunt Jane didn’t even mince any words when it came to exposing us for
our pathetic lives. She gave our parents a tongue lashing and left without much noise. It seemed
she had said her heart out and was pleased with herself. My parents had been quite the whole
time. Somehow they had learnt to let her mop over them without as little as a poke back at her.

To them she was right -they were a cursed people and so were their generation -us. Condemned to failure and cursed to shame and pain. Because to her we deserved nothing less.
I knew they had been humiliated because of me so I rushed to my parents to receive whatever
punishment they were going to dish out to me but as I caught sight of them, I broke down .They
were shattered to a thousand pieces.

” I’m sorry mother…father.” I said shifting my eyes to each one of them. ” I will forget about my desire to learn if it only brings you so much disrespect.” I said in between sobs.

They called me to get closer to them and I did then we all embraced and cried together. My
siblings also joined in.

” Hush please don’t cry .” My mother said patting each one of us ” it will be alright we may be deemed misfits now but we can push through all our trials and make a better name for us.” She added with much resolve

That day we sat down and discussed the way forward. It was about time we stopped wallowing in
self pity and grabbed on to opportunity with both hands but first we had someone to see.

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“It’s a pity you have come to that decision. I still think you are making a grave mistake. ” Mrs
kaoma said finally

We had gone to her office the very next day and turned down the offer she had given my parents.

All efforts to make us change our minds proved futile. If my being in that school would score us
insults from my dear aunt, then it was not worth it. Their little prince had to be left alone and not
suffer embarrassment because of me.

On our way out, we ran into our dear aunt..I guess she came to ask the head teacher to withdraw her offer. I stopped in my tracks and took a good look at her.

” Who is it child?” Father asked sensing another person’s presence
” Uh it’s noone important father .” I quickly lied as she walked past us into the office as though we were strangers to her. I guess following the innuendos we were basically strangers.

I hurriedly led my parents away and we headed to town to do what was hopefully going to be our
last alms collection. Fortunately luck was on our side people were generous that afternoon. We got home late at night
and counted the money.

“Five hundred and ninety thousand kwacha.” I announced triumphantly

” What?” Every one asked in disbelief ” count it again maybe you made a mistake.” Insisted father

” Yes.. in fact I made a mistake it’s actually six hundred thousand kwacha.” I answered later after recounting and I wondered how I miscounted. We had never made such an amount even in a
week. Not to talk of a month.

That night we prayed and thanked God for bestowing blessings upon us. We may have been
called cursed but he seemed to think otherwise.

Afterwards we drew a plan of how we were going to spend the money to earn more. It didn’t matter if we slept on empty stomachs so long as we pulled through the rubble and earned respect from our society.

The only sad part was I had to say goodbye to my education desire that night…..