When I was doing my national service, it was very hard for me, especially during the period when our allowances hadn’t started coming. I had used all the money I had to rent a place in this village I had been posted to. My parents were even looking up to me to send them something from my service allowance. Sometimes it was hard to eat.

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There was a shop we bought items from. It was the largest provision shop in the village. I would go there and buy gari and groundnuts. Sometimes I wouldn’t have the money to buy sugar. I would take it and eat it like that.

I was the quiet type. Maybe it was due to my lack, or poverty had beaten me to a pulp and taken my voice away. Even in school, I hardly talked. In the office where I was doing my national service, there were three of us. They found me strange because I couldn’t say much. Everyone discarded me because of my silence, but I did my job anyway.

One day, I went to this shop to get my usual gari and sugar when the lady asked me, “You won’t buy groundnuts today?” I smiled shyly. I didn’t say much. She added groundnuts and said, “Keep the money.”

I looked at her, and she looked back. She looked like a lady in her early twenties. She had noticed me buy from there but I hadn’t. I asked why, and she said, “Oh, from my heart. Next time, when you get money, I know you’ll buy more.”

I walked backwards, looking at her, as if I didn’t believe she was being kind to me. She smiled until I turned and walked away. I wondered what had just happened. I even decided I wasn’t going to buy from the shop again.

One day after church, I was leaving when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the same lady from the shop. She said, “I haven’t seen you around in a long while. Did you travel?”

That was my third time in the church. Unbeknownst to me, she had noticed me the very first time I went there and knew I was her brother in Christ. I thanked her again for the gift that day and told her I had a lot of gari in the house, which was why I hadn’t been coming around. She said, “Just pass by and visit sometimes.”

I went there that same evening, and she gave me Milo and Nido with a bunch of groundnuts. The next day, she asked if I had the means to cook rice. I shook my head. I had nothing in my room. She said, “Oh, I would have given you some rice so you could cook.”

I asked her that day, “Why are you doing this?” She answered, “Aren’t you my brother? I know you national service guys. All of you in this town are my friends. I can give to you on credit so you can pay when your money comes.”

So I started buying on credit from her. When my allowances started coming, I paid everything I owed so she would give me more when I needed it. We became very good friends, and sometimes we met after the shop had closed.

I got sick and traveled back home for a week or so. While I was at home, we talked. She kept asking about me and how I was doing. I got back to the village and went to the shop to check on her. She wasn’t there. I called her phone, and she said she was home. Something didn’t sound right, but she didn’t say what it was.

The next day, she told me her madam had taken her out of the shop. “You mean fired?” I asked. She answered, “Yeah, sort of, but I’m okay. I will go to school next month, so it’s fine.” I asked why she got fired, and she told me she had given too much on credit, and the people were not paying as promised. Her madam found out and fired her.

I felt very bad, even though I didn’t owe her. It felt like I had contributed to her losing her job, a place we had all benefited from. A few weeks later, she left the village for school, as she had said. It was hard without her, but at least the allowances were coming consistently, so life was bearable.

I completed my service and left the village. Almost ten years later, I was walking out of the office when I met this pretty lady. She looked like someone I knew from my past. She stopped and looked at me for a while. “I know you,” she said. I answered, “I know you too.”

“Judith?”

A few minutes later, we were talking about the village where it all started, how she got fired and how I couldn’t afford gari and sugar until she gave them to me on credit. She had come to my office because she had been called for an interview. I said, “Do your best. I will take it from there.”

Right after the interview, I went to see my boss. I pleaded with her to consider Judith. She answered, “Oh, she did well at the interview. That shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

We both work at the same place now. She doesn’t report to me, but the relationship between us is so close that everyone around here thought we were dating. Others also believed she was my sister. To be honest, dating her came to mind at some point, but I didn’t want to suggest it. I wanted things to happen naturally until I later got to know she was already in a very healthy relationship with a man she met while in school.

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I backed out and wished her well. Last week was her wedding. I was there. I was happy for her. I knew in my heart that her husband had gotten the best woman, and I prayed he would treat her very well.

We share an office and a history that goes beyond simple kindness. To me, Judith Afful saved my life when I didn’t even have a straw to hold on to, and this is to tell her how much I appreciate her and the things she did for me at the beginning of my life.

—Andrews

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