There are times that life will actually come for you. The thing is life has its own rules, it (life) tosses one into a storm where you must pick between your morals and your reality. Well, I never thought I’d find myself there, but life happens, and that memory has stucked to my heart ever since. Let me walk you through....
I was still a student then, it was during my third year, I was as broke as anything with no clear hope in sight. My father had just been laid off from his job, my mother who runs a oetty trade couldn't afford to to feed all six of us, talkless of paying my school fee. The tightness then was different, no one to run to, it was around that time our last born who happens to be a girl was rushed to the hospital, I was called and told that it was her asthma, OMG, what's all these again, her drugs were expensive, there are bills already piling also, and I happen to be the helpless firstborn, I just hope you can relate..
That particular night, I couldn't sleep, I wanted everything to stop, I wanted everything to feel what I was feeling, the fan above kept making sound, does this fan not think, my neighbors were laughing and making jest outside, can't they just keep shut, the cockroaches in my room started their whatever also, can't they just see that this might is different, can't they just be somewhere and be silent. I kept thinking of a lot of things. When everything later settled and there was silence, it was past 1am in the midnight already, I was still there, I thought of everything I had ever believed...integrity, honesty, faith and all, of a truth they are noble but nobility has not paid these bills.
Well, I kept thinking, I also had two carryovers which I must find a way to fix or I will repeat, those courses I failed they were major courses. I must find a way to fix that before I even think of paying my school fees, problems were just all around. I told a friend of mine somehow, I didn't really open up to him that it was me, and he told me he knew someone who could fix those results, and change grades. I didn’t answer him, I didn't want to look too happy. That would be another money now, where do I see money to pay this grade changer again.
I decide to go visit him in the office the next day, the earlier the better, my salary would soon show up. The thing is I didn't fail because I was not serious or cause I was lazy, no, it was because I really did not have time for studying, I was working two jobs, one was in the day time, the other was night, I just had to, so I could help myself in school and also send something home at the end of each month. Funny enough, I was amazed the failed course was just two, reason being that, I did not even engage in any test of any course that semester. And this result of mine, being that there were very important courses, I'd be asked to repeat..or withdraw. I wanted to go for NYSC(National Youth Service Corps) that year, I already planned the 77 thousand naira they were paying, I already planned how I would find side hustle wherever it is I am being posted to.
I went to church and prayed, but it seems God was silent or maybe I was too distracted to hear Him. Long last, I paid this guy for those two courses. He asked me to go and that changes would be made, the result came out and God so good, my name was there, not among those that failed, and that was it, nobody suspected anything, those that are happy are there, same way there are those who cry and those who frown at their result.
I called home and told my mum, she was very happy, she told me my sister has gotten a lot better also, she danced and sang on phone, she even went ahead to testify in church the following sunday. I was able to talk with my sister too, her voice was very different now, she was glad too. But I couldn’t celebrate, I thought I had done the wrong thing for the right reason.
The guilt didn’t go away, even after I graduated and went for NYSC, till I got a job that guilt never left me. I would sit in meetings and wonder if I deserve to be there, me that paid my way through school, even though it was once, was that fair, I did the wrong thing and everywhere was good.
Sometimes ago, I met someone who was a counselor, I told her everything and she didn’t judge me. Instead, she asked me a question I did not give an answer to till now, she said.."If it came down to saving your family or saving your conscience, which would you pick. Life doesn't just have two colors as we all believe it to be..black and white, there are several colors, some deep, some light, the one it showed me was one where you have to make a decision that you would pray you never have to make again.
I happen to be the type who think about morals a lot. I think about the country we live in, a country where integrity can feel like a punishment, where good people sleep hungry, where bad people build mansions. And sincerely, there are times we are forced to choose survival over sanctity, not that its right, but its just the reality.
I have never justified what I did, but I very well understood it.
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All pictures are mine.