Last year, November 22nd should have been my wedding, the one where I got married to the love of my life. I was supposed to have a bachelorette party too, with my friends in a nice suite in a hotel. We booked that suite a long time ago in anticipation of the wedding. The wedding didn’t happen because my fiancé was lying on the hospital bed with both arms broken and serious injuries from an accident he had on the 30th of October, 2025, which was a week before our traditional marriage, when he was returning from Tepa.

He had gone to Tepa at the invitation of my father. My father had then insisted that the traditional marriage be done in his house at Tepa. My fiancé and I both stay and work in Sekondi, and my father, although he has a house in Tepa where I’ve lived all my life until I was posted to Sekondi to work in 2020, now also lives in the Western Region where we come from. So initially, we had agreed to hold both the white and traditional marriages at Sekondi since our friends and some family members are there too and also to make things easier for all of us. My dad insisted that if the traditional marriage didn’t take place at his house in Tepa, where his friends and cronies could witness it and hail him for raising a daughter worth marrying, then he was going to wash his hands off the marriage.

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He termed it the last honour due to him as my father. The topic of going to Tepa brought a lot of tension between my dad and me. I held the belief that it made no sense to transport family and friends to Tepa and back. Besides, a good number of my relatives were living in the Western Region, and my parents too had even left Tepa for the Western Region anyway. So, what at all was the use? Go there for the traditional ceremony and return to Sekondi for the white wedding. That was asking for too much from our guests, me, and the groom. I was 39, for God’s sake. I didn’t have time to waste. All I wanted was to get married to that man.

My mum sided with me, which led to her falling out with my dad. “Dad, it would save cost, money and time,” I said. My father refused to see my point. We were both stubborn and set in our ways. My fiancé decided to take charge; he said we were going to have the ceremony at Tepa. When I disagreed, he told me, “It is just a day’s ceremony, let your father have it. This fight would go on for too long if we left the two of you to it. I just want peace. It is his day too.” He managed to convince me.

The house at Tepa was very empty and lonely. No one had lived there in a very long time; lots of cleaning and renovations had to be done. So, on that fateful Thursday, which was a week before our traditional marriage, my fiancé went to our home in Tepa at the invitation of my father to check the house together with the event organiser. On returning, he got involved in a gory accident 30 minutes away from Sekondi. Of the 30+ people in the bus, he was the only one who sustained the most injuries. All the others had not even a scratch on them. The vehicle was said to have somersaulted three times before it landed.

He spent almost 8 hours in surgery. He also suffered a fracture to the left part of his head and a severe injury to his left arm. We stayed at the hospital for 3 weeks, got discharged, and returned to the hospital every three days for dressing of the wound.

On some days, he barely slept. He couldn’t sleep; sleep wouldn’t come to me either. He whined and wailed in pain as I watched. I didn’t want to go home either. How could I leave him to suffer that great pain? I wanted him to wake each time to see me. To know that he was safe.

During his stay at the hospital, his family and close associates were hostile to me; some insulted me openly, and others came to suggest that I was not the right person to take care of him. Others said I was going to be an impediment to his healing, so it was not wise that I should be closer to him. They said my presence would worsen his state. “He is not going to make it out alive if you are taking care of him in that state,” they said. I remember my father-in-law-to-be telling me, “Young lady, leave my son alone. You are not married to him yet; leave him, let his soul breathe and let him come back to life for us.”

In all that hostility and animosity, I stood my ground that I was not leaving until he himself demanded I leave his hospital room. Much to their surprise, he asked me to stay there when he was finally able to talk. They didn’t stop being rude to me, but at least I had the freedom to function.

You ask about my father? He was shaken to the bones when he heard of the accident. He came to the hospital to see him, but then he wasn’t allowed to because Daniel was still in a fragile state. With regret written all over his face, he looked more aged than he was supposed to be looking. My mother said that the accident shook him too. If only he had listened to me. I was so angry at him that I didn’t even look into his face when he spoke.

Daniel has healed well; the scar on his face is healing well. Some deep wounds took time to heal.

The wedding was called off, and everyone had something to say. Some looked at me with pity, others who eulogised my strength, “Be strong, God will give you more strength,” they’d say. But what they didn’t know was that I was very tired of being a strong woman. I just wanted light. I didn’t want to feel suffocated like I felt, I didn’t want to wet my pillow with tears at night, I didn’t want to cry when no one was looking. When Daniel wasn’t looking, I wept; if I was left alone, I wept. I had to be strong for both of us. I couldn’t have let him know that my head was constantly aching from the physical and emotional exhaustion.

They say God gives us the load He knows we will be able to carry. I am tired and exhausted from carrying the loads God brings my way. I ask myself, why can’t life deal with me fairly so I don’t have to be strong to carry burdens? What have I done wrong to be carrying burdens each time? They say affliction shall not arise a second time, but for me, this was the 3rd time my marriage to 3 different people at different stages in life has been cancelled or brought to a halt for varying reasons.

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Please, when you all go to bed today, please say a prayer for us. Please ask God to have mercy on us and lighten our burden. Please tell God that He says affliction shall not arise a second time, but that was the third time; He should have mercy on me. I believe that when a lot of people pray about the same thing, God will listen. Maybe He isn’t listening to me because I am all alone praying. Please help me pray.

—GENE

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