FAMILY TILES: ‘‘I’’M SUFFERING FOR MARRYING THE WRONG MAN’

Her parents who had no choice than to allow Derrick marry their daughter accepted their fate. They couldn''t dissuade their daughter Gloria from marrying Derrick, so reluctantly they allowed the traditional marriage to hold. When Derrick brought his people to Gloria''s parents, her siblings were present. They were not excited, never showed that something like marriage ceremony was taking place in their family. They appeared casually dressed as if nothing was happening and they never helped Gloria dress up. She brought her friends from Lagos who cooked for her and dressed her up as a bride. When the bride price was paid, Pa Patrick said something that his wife and children were happy about. ""Gloria this is now your cross, since you refused to listen to us your family.
Whatever thing that happens to you, is strictly your funeral. We don''t have need of you in this family and that is just it."" Even at that, Gloria never gave a hoot. She carried her luggage and some of her few items that were still in her father''s house and left. She came back to Lagos with Derrick who is now her husband and both were living together. Life seemed to be rosier than before. Derrick was made the president of Ibusa Youths Association in Lagos. And during one of their meetings, a medical doctor, also a member lectured them on the importance of couples knowing their genotype even before marriage. ""He invited my husband and I to his hospital for genotype test. I gingered Derrick for us to go for it because he refused initially. And when we were told the result, Derrick walked out on the doctor and I followed suit. When we hopped into our car, he insisted we should go to another place to confirm the result. And we told same thing. That both of us were AS carriers.
Meaning that we were more likely of having sickle cell anemia children. But we ignored the warnings the doctor gave us about divorcing now that we didn''t have any child. We went ahead together because we loved each other, and when the first pregnancy came, we were scared initially but later on, our fears fizzled out. I had my baby, a girl whom we named Abigail after the female doctor that delivered her. We loved her so much. The baby brought me closer to my husband the more and I never gave a hoot about my parents and siblings,"" Gloria said. When Abigail was close to a year,"" I took her to run a genotype test though there was no sign of it. I needed to douse my anxiety but the result worsened it. Abigail is SS, meaning that she is a sickle cell anemia. I broke down thereon the spot and had a good cry. And while I cried, the poor girl was asking me why I was crying. I couldn''t explain to her. She was tool young to understand.
When we came home, I showed the result to Derrick, he too felt depressed. For one week or more, we were sober in the house because we knew what it meant to have a sickle cell anaemia child. We were even scared of sleeping together as man and wife because of the fear of having another sickler. But I didn''t know I was pregnant already even before taking my child for the test. My second baby brought us a little joy because she was free from it. She was only a carrier (AS),"" she enthused. Their second baby was named after ""me. We named her Gloria and just as ray of hope was beginning to be felt in my marriage, I started having yet another big challenge. Derrick had started behaving funny. He was sick and was hospitalized at the psychiatric hospital Yaba where he was being treated. That was the time I got to know more of him from his only relative in Lagos. He told me that Derrick was mentally sick in Australia and that was why he was repatriated. That when he landed in Lagos, he was the one that took him to a psychiatrist where he stayed for almost a year before he came back to Ibusa. I was shocked to hear all these about a man I thought I knew everything bout him,"" she stressed. When Derrick was in the psychiatric home for almost a year, life became miserable for Gloria and her two kids. ""I was the only one raising my two children alone. My daughter''s health condition used to put me off balance each time she had crisis. And Derrick who had been discharged hardly come home to us.
He turned himself to a flying squatter, he never cared if his family existed. When I went to see him at the place he was squatting with someone, he warned me never to look for him. And that our marriage was over, that I should take care of my two children and never ask of him. That was when I remembered my parents and their advice. Though I work and earn a living for me and my two daughters, but life hasn''t been fare to me. Even as I speak to you, I don''t know where Derrick has been for the past three years but I heard he is still in Lagos, roaming all over club houses in Lagos looking for an opportunity to sing for some money. People who saw him last said that once you see him, you would know without being told that he is sick. I regret not listening to my parents. It really hurts honestly and the worst is that his two daughter keep asking me of him. I''m 28 years old. Is this how I would continue with life?