Marital Epiphany; A Bachelor’s Wake-up Call, by Ishaq Habeeb

Somebody I know suffered three dislocations on his left leg but was fixed up swiftly in the usually mostly-preferred tradition way around here, but as is their tradition, he was instructed not to move an inch for two weeks, to just sit as still as he could and allow the process to complete itself before he could learn to stand, then possibly walk again.

We were driving him home back to his wife, who would be his new round-the-clock chef, nurse, nanny, mother and comforter. In the course of the ride, he had chance to suddenly appreciate the humongous contributions a wife offers the home front which he strongly reintegrated and with solid reasons too, far outweigh that of the husband.

All of a sudden, the most compelling force that sometimes triggers my dormant thoughts of maybe getting married someday, came calling. I wondered to myself; “so until yesterday, this man could walk, bathe, pray, use the loo, move around, all on his own, completely unaided. But from today to the next few weeks, he suddenly couldn’t do any of those things without needing constant assistance. He would need somebody to clean him up out and out and on daily basis. God abeg!”. 

My thoughts lingers, “What if that was me?” “Who would i possibly and comfortably over burden with such tasks?” “Who could shoulder all this, least grudgingly?” “What if I never recovered?” “Who could possibly spend their lifetime, tending to my endless needs in that vegetative state?”.

My marital epiphany was cut short by a story somebody narrated where somebody they had seen only 3 days before the incident would happen, slumped down and had a sudden stroke which he survived for 10 years before he gave up.

That his was the type where the victim can’t even so much as sit up, and would just be bedridden for lifetime without any hope of recovery, and the man was only in his fifties, and had four wives. Eventually, the last two left though, and remarried elsewhere (no judgements from here), but the senior wives stayed with him until he breathed his last. And this man was actually really poor.

When he was alive, all four wives were staying in poor rented houses, one wasn’t even paying rent, it was given to him to stay pending when the owner demands for it or when he dies, and his next of kin come for it, then he’d be evicted on short notice.

Conclusively, I learned that more than just getting married, if married, one must give his wife everything he has in this world — if that’s what it takes to make her happy and treat her like she’s the reason for his being because life is funny. And women if they will, can be UNBELIEVABLY LOYAL to a man in a marriage where it matter the most.

May God avail us with good health and spare us any disaster that we can’t bear, amin. And if we ever get married, may we be the best husbands our wives could ever asked for, amin. 

Ishaq Habeeb writes from Nigeria and can be reached via officialishaqhabeeb@yahoo.com