Dear Agatha,
My mother was the only parent I knew. My father abandoned her when she was pregnant of me. According to her, her parents also turned their back on her because of their Christian beliefs. She had to struggle with the help of a kind neighbour who offered her shelter to bring me up on her own.
After she had me, the neighbour who was childless took me away from her so that she could improve her lot in life. It was at this point her parents once again took her in.
Her parents refused to have anything to do with me insisting I was the seed of the devil. It was this neighbour who trained me despite the harassment she was constantly subjected to by my grandparents.
She kept telling my mother and I that I was a gift to her from God and that she didn’t care what my grandparents thought of her or me.
When my mother left for east in pursuit of better education, she didn’t make me feel her absence. Every month, she would take me with her to see my mother. It was a huge sacrifice but one she made with all happiness.
After her graduation, my mother met and married an Ibo man. She didn’t hide the fact that she had a child from the man. As a matter of fact she came to see my foster mother and me with her man. We also attended their wedding even though my grandparents refused to allow me into their sitting room during the introduction. We stayed outside all the same.
Her visits after her wedding became far-spaced when she got pregnant. But she kept calling and sending us money to feed. From what I gathered from my foster mother; the pregnancy was a difficult one so also was the birth of the child.
I was in my final year in secondary school when my mother died at childbirth. The love and support of my foster mother helped a great deal during the dark period. She left behind two sons.
Despite the death of my mother, my grandparents’ attitude towards me didn’t change. As a matter of fact, they said my mother’s death has something to do with me, that she died because of the sin she committed with my father.
Today through the grace of God and my foster mother, I am a medical doctor. I have reunited with my brothers who are also doing fine.
Now I am about to wed. My grandparents whose other child died five years after my mother are now desperate to have me. They want to be part of my life, going to the extent of trying to accuse my foster mother of stealing their grandchild and poisoning my mind against them.
When that ploy failed to yield any result, they have since taken to begging my foster mother to help talk to me. Strangely, my brothers don’t like them and are solidly behind my decision not to invite them to my wedding.
But my foster mother is against my decision. She says I owe it to the memory of my mother to be polite to her parents even if they treated me badly. She wants me to forgive them and give them the honour of hosting the traditional wedding ceremony. I have told her, it would take place in the only home I have ever known throughout my life but she still persists that I invite them. I cannot bring myself to forgive or forget how they have treated me all these while.
Would they have come if I were a beggar? If my foster mother hadn’t taken me in, given me the best of education would they have acknowledged me as their granddaughter?
I don’t want to disobey my foster mother, but is it right to associate with people who never cared about me? Who from day one rejected me and at every opportunity called me the seed of a devil?
It doesn’t make sense to me. Please help me because I don’t know what to do.
Morenikeji.
Dear Morenikeji,
Long before we were even conceived, God has outlined the pattern, colours as well as texture of our lives. We don’t have a choice in the matter of who our parents are, or the process that give birth to us. These things come from God.
That you came through the woman that carried you in her womb or the seed of the man you don’t know, are part of His plans for you. They didn’t happen by chance. He knew your grandparents would reject you from the womb and that your mother would die early in life hence stationed a childless woman to foster and provide you with a home.
When He also created the woman, He knew she would not be able to have a child of her own, hence planned for you to come the way you did to give her complete control over you.
You wouldn’t have been able to stay with her if your grandparents had shown you love and accepted you whole-heartedly. If you had a father, he too may not have allowed the situation of his child staying with someone he considered a complete stranger.
Doubtless, God planned your destiny and that of this woman to function as mother and child.
This is why you must listen to her and forgive your grandparents and give them the honour of being present at your wedding. It is the least you can do for the memory of a woman who gave you life and showered you with love while she lived. Despite their attitude towards you, they gave birth to that woman who never for once displayed any regret or shame at having you when she did. She was willing to put her life on hold to have you all alone when other young girls would have considered taking their own lives or terminating the pregnancy.
There is no contesting the fact that your grandparents were really off the mark in their attitude towards you but God knows best. Who knows if you had grown with them, their resentment of you may have prevented you from achieving the height of success you have attained now.
Would they have been able to fund your medical education? Would you have been able to endure their bitterness at close range? Who knows they, through their attitude, may have pushed you into a life-style, which would have effectively terminated your God given destiny.
A lot of people we today brand failures, urchins, armed robbers, drug addicts were not created by God to be any of these. They too came with the same promising future you came with but got derailed by the situations they found themselves in. Many of them were meant by God to be doctors like you, captains of industry, successful politicians, money bags but never got close to any of these dreams, the environment they found themselves in were hostile to such lofty dreams.
Had you grown with them, the level of hatred your grandparents displayed for you would have driven you into the waiting hands of any man, making the same mistake your mother made. That God gave you another home to enable you grow up into who He desires you to be should make you forget whatever wrong these two must have done to you.
Inability to forgive them places you under unnecessary spiritual constraints. It is pointless trying to do God’s work for Him. You had no hand in what you are today so why now being the one to insist on doing things your own way?
You got to where you are through the mercy of God so why not extend the same mercy to these old people who have little time to live? Why do you want to contribute more to their misery? Burying all their children in their lifetime is more than any parent can bear. Although they appear to be normal but everything inside of them has stopped beating. What you see are empty shells. Only your forgiveness as well as showing them love can put some flesh on the hollow of the emptiness they are now facing.
They made their choice to be bitter and resentful of you; you also have it in your hands to make the choice of being happy and free of guilt in your life.
Look at them; in all honesty, do you want to end up like them? Unfortunately, if you refuse to forgive them, you risk ending up like them because their inability to forgive their daughter and show you love brought them to this end. If you also refuse to forgive them and show them love now that they desperately need it, you are also like them in more ways than you realise.
Take your brothers and go to them. Judgement is for the Lord. Together with your brothers, fill their hearts and lives with love. It doesn’t make you less of your foster mother’s child, or less appreciative of her role in your life.
Going to them would only serve as the icing on the cake as well as showcase the good work she did for you. She must have a pure heart to have done all she did for you and your mother despite the attitude of your grandparents. If you refuse to listen to her, you would be failing in your responsibility towards her as a loving and respectful child.
As a mother, she has given you a commission to go and make peace with them. Obey her so as to continue to enjoy her blessings as well as the mercies of God.
Good luck.
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