A Dream Begotten of Love
Everyone considered Jim the black sheep of the family. As he sat on the surface root of the tree across the road from his father's country home, with a canvas and a brush, he could not help but feel defeated at the prospect of having to build anything remotely equal in size or grandeur to the mansion in front of him. And he admitted as much to his brother, Mark thereby cutting the ground from under his own feet.
It was 1987 and Jim had just completed his one-year mandatory national service after graduating from the University. Apart from painting, he had no other ambition and no other real talent. But he had his girls and that was all he needed. Unfortunately, girls did not put food on the table, at least not the type he mixed with and certainly not the way he went about it. After the responsibility of taking care of his ageing mother began to get to him, he decided it was time to return to Abuja where he had lived during the national service year, away from the prying eyes of other family members and all the responsibilities.
In Abuja, Jim found a teaching job in a secondary school. It suited his lifestyle as the job did not require much exertion from him and it gave him enough time to chase his extra-curricular activities which revolved around his favourite thing in the world - women. Even though he had them in all shapes, weights, heights and sizes, all the people that knew him in Abuja were always amazed at his difficulty in settling for one girl.
The passage of time is stubbornly persistent and it often happened whether or not it is used. Jim did use his time but not very well. Whenever he was faced with an important decision in his life, he always knew the right one but he never took it because it was always excruciatingly difficult. Nobody worried about Jim like his elder brother who knew his potentials and whose heart was constantly broken to see those potentials go down the drain. Mark was about the only person who hadn't lost faith in Jim. It had been four years since he last saw his brother so Mark took the thirteen hour trip from his home to Abuja to see his little brother.
Mark did not expect much from Jim but what he saw broke his heart nonetheless. He lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a house that looked like it could cave in any minute. Mark could not risk sleeping in that house but he managed to persuade Jim that he had found a girl that he would like Jim to marry. He had hoped that Jim would follow him home to meet the girl but Jim had many good excuses why he would come along much later. Mark returned home and went to meet Ijeh's parents, the girl he had told Jim about. It turned out that Ijeh had always liked Jim even though she was too little to have mingled in the crowd that Jim was used to. She watched in the sidelines and hoped that one day Jim would look her direction, but he never did.
When she heard that Jim was coming to ask for her hand in marriage, it did not matter to her that he was doing so through a proxy: she was willing to do whatever Jim wanted. He was a demigod to her and nothing he did was wrong. According to the traditional marriage rites, Mark had previously taken a keg of palm wine and other requirements to Ijeh's kindred to ask if his family could come and marry their daughter. According to the tradition, it was not necessary that the intending husband should go with his kinsmen for any of the preliminary marriage rites, so Jim's presence was not required. When it was time for the father of the bride to ask the bride if she was willing to marry the man that had come to pay her bride price, Jim was needed but he was not there. Thinking that this would be the end of the rites, the bride's father decided to ask the question anyway.
"Do you know this man that has come to marry you?" Mazi Okwa, Ijeh's father asked, pointing at Mark.
"Yes, sir," she replied him without hesitation. The elders were confused knowing that Mark was a married man. They were hoping she would say no since Jim was not there. If she had said no, the goods with which the in-laws came to fulfil the traditional rites would have been in vain. But she said yes, and there was nothing they could do about it since the tradition allowed polygamy.
Thereafter, Mark wrote to his brother advising him that the traditional marriage rites for his wife had been met. Everyone, including Mark, was surprised to find his brother back home two days after he received the letter. Without any waste of time, Jim literally swept Ijeh off her feet and returned to Abuja with her. Those who expected church wedding or any other form of celebration were very disappointed. Six years later, Jim and Ijeh had three beautiful children: Anna, James and John. The couple were not rich but they were very happy together. That was when it happened: Ijeh took ill and they could not find any medical cure.
It turned out that she had low altitude cerebral oedema. Neither of them could explain how she developed the illness but the doctor told them that she needed to relocate to a location at a higher altitude in order to reverse the symptoms she was having which included extreme fatigue and lack of proper breathing. There were several locations with higher elevations around the city but most of them were so steep that normal means of transportation could not be used to access such locations. Jim was willing to do whatever was necessary to save the love of his life but he did not have the resources to do it. Finally, he decided that he would carry her on his motorcycle and go uphill as far as he could get, then he could hide the motorcycle in the bush and carry her on his shoulders as high up the hill as he could.
Everywhere around him there was green shrubbery. When he saw the physical changes in his wife at the top of the hill, he could not bear to take him from that spot. He decided that he was going to buy the property at the top of that hill even though he had no savings. He set up a tent for her and left to find the landowner.
It took Jim the whole day to find Ali, the landowner of the hilltop, but when he finally found him, the man could not believe his ears. The land had been in his family for ages and they all thought that it was worthless. Now, this crazy man wants to buy or rent it, he thought. He had no idea what the land could be worth or even how large it was and he was too old to climb it and find out. So, he offered to give half of the land to Jim for free, provided that he would fence the whole land, divide it into two and take half. Jim thought it sounded too good to be true.
He quickly went back to his home, carried more items and returned to the hilltop. There he camped with his wife until the next morning. He lived within a secondary school premise and his neighbour agreed to help him take care of his children. It took Jim three years to build a small hut and fence the land as he agreed, all by himself. It helped that most of the materials he needed; sand, stones, water and cement were easily procured around the area. And there was no way to quantify the changes in his wife. Within months after they relocated to the hilltop, she was able to bring the children and tutor them from home.
When the other landowners saw what Jim had done with that space, they each wanted to hire him to build their own houses. Twenty years later, Jim had built a beautiful house for himself and, as far as he could see in all directions, were houses designed and built by himself and all it took was his love and dedication to his wife. Looking back at 1987, sitting across the road from his father's country home, he realized that what he was lacking was not ambition, it was love.
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