Spirit Lives On

SPIRIT LIVES ON

    “Honey,” Ugochi called right in the bedroom.

    “Yes dear,” her hubby Ugochukwu answered.

    “I have something to discuss with you.”

    The couple, Mr. & Mrs. Ugochukwu Okorie tied the knot nine years back, but was yet to hear the cry of a newborn baby. Though all the medical diagnosis or findings proved that they were perfectly sound, but they could wholly sense that there was something very wrong somewhere which they were yet to fathom. In view of this presumption, each day of their life as a couple was preoccupied with such series of expensive thoughts, mixed feelings as well as rhetorical questions as ‘God, why me?, who’s behind this?, what have we done to deserve this?, I wouldn’t have gotten married in the first place’, and what have you. Despite the coincidental synonymous nature of their names – Ugochukwu and Ugochi, which made many friends and well-wishers saw them as destined couple, they were still faced with a crisis that almost made them abandon their faith in God; in other words, the people’s initial perception over their union later appeared like a paradox not just to the couple but anyone around including their aged parents.

    During the aforementioned moment, which was in the early morning of that very day, the seemingly unlucky partners who just woke up from their long lasted night rest that was interrupted by several nightmares at intervals owing to the not unusual restlessness of their respective minds were still lying in their matrimonial bed.

   “What’s it?” Ugochukwu responded calmly.

   “Since we have confirmed that we are medically sound,” she began hesitantly. “I suggest we should try God.”

   “How do you mean?”

   “There’s this pastor a friend of mine introduced to me,” said Ugochi. “I learnt the man is very powerful.”

   “So…?” He said, staring at her.

   “I think we should give him a trial.”

   “You think?”

   “Yes.”

   “Well, I don’t think so.” He disclosed, faced the other side of the room.

   “Why are you being stubborn?” She said bitterly.

   “Me, stubborn?” Ugochukwu enquired, glanced at her.

   “Of course, you are being stubborn.” She vocally asserted.

   “Well, call it whatever you wish to call it,” he ranted. “The point is that I am not going anywhere.”

   There was a bit absolute silence.

   “Honey, I am so sorry if I have used a hard word on you,” Ugochi uttered submissively. “But you know what we are passing through.”

   The husband was speechless.

   “We need prayers.” She landed.

   “So,” he broke the silence. “We can’t pray for ourselves, right?”

   “It’s not what you think.”

   “So, what?”

   “I know we can,” she replied. “But we still need the assistance of a man of God.”

   “So, I am a man of the devil?”

   “Please, stop playing with this issue.” She urged madly.

   “But you just called me a man of the devil.”

   “I repeat,” she enjoined. “This is a very serious issue, and we must treat it as such.”

   There was tranquility.

   “For crying out loud,” Ugochi rode on. “Nine years of barrenness isn’t nine months.”

   “There you go again,” he said. “So, you believe you are barren?”

   “Please, stop misunderstanding me,” she quarreled. “You know how people see all these things.”

   “Is it now about the people, or about us?” He queried. “Well, I think this discussion is over.” He declared, made attempt to leave the bed.

    But she pleaded with him to stay back while holding his nightwear. “Honey please…,” she said. “If not for anything, just for my sake.”

   “It seems you don’t understand,” he responded amicably. “I don’t want us to start going from one church to the other.”

    She stared at him in awe. She wondered why the young man was yet to face the reality.

    “If God really wants to bless us with a child,” he continued. “He will do so at the right time.”

    The altercation lingered for several days until after two weeks when Ugochukwu decided to have a rethink. Thereafter, they were touring from one church, healing centre, house of prophesies, and so on, to another, all to no avail.

    The ugly scenario continued till one certain day when the couple encountered one passerby madman on the street when they were just leaving one of the churches they patronized.

    “Una just dey run up and down.” the madman lamented in Pidgin English meaning literally ‘you people are just wandering about’ as soon as they stepped out of the church premises.

     They stood aloof and stared at him.

    “No child for you unless you confess.” The stranger who was in rags prophesied.

    They instantly became shocked, stood still.

    “Woman, go and confess,” he said louder. “Man, go and confess.” He added.

    The couple became more depressed and flabbergasted. Luckily for them, there were no other passersby or residents within the arena.

    The insane man reiterated the last clause for the umpteenth time that he found himself singing with it.

    It was indeed a horrible moment for the couple whom was covered with fathomless ghost pimples. It seemed to them as if a messiah just came down from above to reveal the apparently forgotten story of their life. Therein, they recalled every bit of their collective past life which they foolishly thought had gone forever.

   The truth was that, Ugochi had once committed manslaughter. Nine years back when the couple newly got married, they were living with Ugochi’s niece called Ebube who was barely 11-year-old.

    Ebube was the first child to Ugochi’s married elder sister. Along the line, one fateful day, she provoked her aunt Ugochi owing to one slight mistake she made when both of them were busy in the kitchen, while Ugochukwu was seated in the sitting room watching television. And, in the process, the bad-tempered Ugochi unconsciously landed her kitchen knife on the poor kid. Therein, the kid bled profoundly till she passed on to the couple’s utmost surprise. Prior to her exit, Ugochukwu had ran to the kitchen to ascertain what went wrong the moment the kid cried intensely as a result of the hurt inflicted on her.

    The most painful part of it was that the couple hid the cause of her death to their relatives including the deceased’s mother. They had lied to them that she accidentally hit her head on one of the sharp objects in the kitchen. Little did they realize that one’s spirit lives on even many years after his/her eternal departure.

    Immediately after the revelation, the insane young man vanished into thin air as he repeatedly cited the clause – ‘woman, go and confess; man, go and confess’; he probably ran into a nearby bush. To him, the mission had been successfully accomplished.

    Thereafter, the couple headed for the appropriate quarter and confessed without much ado as requested, and eventually received the needed forgiveness. Barely three weeks after the scenario, Ugochi conceived at ease to the glory of God; she gave birth to a bouncing baby girl nine months on.

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