http://www.belfordscorelines.com/2021/07/please-click-link-below-to-link-part-of.html
In the midst of Madam Celina’s well intentioned, actively directed, and beautifully executed mind piercing and heartbreaking emotional outburst, which some thinkers described as a strategy she deployed to dump a load, in the soul of a trusted, benevolent and considerate Man, to leverage her desire to be a lover.
Suddenly, Madam Celina paused, took
a long breath, and like one assessing her environment, before the next step,
she looked left, right, back and front, and in an authoritative manner, sounded
it loud and clear that her mind is made, and the only thing left, was to declare
her readiness to accept the marriage offer Mr. Barnabas made her some years
past. She was not ready to be swayed by anything contrary, she said. "I
cannot sacrifice that offer, for the young ones, who as far as I know, have the
future and its opportunities ahead of them, including finding a worthy,
dependable and caring partner to settle down with, if they so desire. There’s
no reason to think otherwise, and no time for unnecessary luxury, she told
herself.
Continuing in her line of
thought, Madam Celina affirmed “I cannot allow it to happen again. I did it
before and paid for it. Right before me that marriage offer slipped through my
fingers. Not again, not when I can fight, not when I can stop their marriage,
not when the decision to do so rests with me. All my life, I have been the one at
the receiving end. At different times I have played with my emotion. I have
sacrificed for other people. Yet, nobody ever cared enough to stand out for me.
Drawing closer to Mr. Barnabas, she asked, somehow rhetorically “Can’t people understand? It was my openness, my decision to think of you and the situation then that brought me, to the state I am presently. Did it not backfire on me at the end? I felt for you, I reasoned that it was not the real you that took the decision to ask for my hand in marriage. You were under intense heat, I mean pressure that my condition put you into. You did not make that offer because you were ready to remarry. You made it simply because you could not bear my condition. Did I do wrong to have considered your state of mind then? But, what did you do? Pick yourself and off you went. What did anyone else do? Did anybody care to know, or rather understand that one thing that mattered most in my life, had just eluded me? Did anyone know that all through the years I’ve been emotionally battered, psychologically devastated and mentally disfigured?
“Yes, My dear, Barnabas, what else
do you or anybody for all care, still want to hear? Tell me. Tell me there’s no
sense in what I am saying. Tell me it doesn’t matter. Tell me about what the
world will say. Tell me it is okay, to let go. Dear, tell me that I am wrong, that
I am not supposed to do what I am doing.
Blame me. Condemn me. Cast me down, tell me you feel surprised about my
conduct. Go ahead…
“Why stay there and stir at
me, Mr. Barnabas. Won’t you tell me you don’t know what I am saying? Won’t you tell me you’ve
never felt anything for me? Convince me your sudden departure without any trace
of you had nothing to do with the same emotion, I am expressing. Go ahead and
convince me that the same World that did not give a hoot that I am dying inside;
that did not care about what happened to us by that forced, prolonged separation,
is the same World you and I should consider this time around.
“Won’t you say something,
Barnabas? Won’t you tell me, I am talking too much? Won’t you tell me to calm
down, to understand? I know you enough to know what is right there in your
mind. And, I ask, what is it that I should understand? Is it that what I am
doing now is a crime or that I committed any in the past?
“Is it not true that I lost my husband?
Did I kill him? Did I not love him, and still do? Can anybody convince you we
do not deserve each other? If you’re not sure, Mr. Barnabas, I am. If you’re
not certain that we yearn for each other, I am. I have bottled up for too long,
I won’t do that again.
“We didn’t kill our spouses, we
loved them, we cared for them and we still do. We grieved and mourned them with
passion, didn’t we. Their passage to the great beyond was and will never be
easy for us. In their separate grave they know our pains, they understand our plight
and are supporting us from their abode.
The principled, Mr. Barnabas, highly
sensitive, soft spoken and evasive, as always, was very quiet, silent and calculative.
Faced with the present challenge, he reveals a Man that is disturbed,
seriously, but not in a hurry to take action. Everything he is doing is to be
totally in control of his emotion.
As a very compassionate person,
especially when confronted with facts, he found himself dumbfounded, calm and attentive.
He became particularly, very observant, noted in details all that played out. He
labelled it a passing phase, necessary for his son to settle down a married Man.
But wished his late wife, Michael’s Mother was alive to see the Son get married.
Suddenly, his mind travelled far and came back, still centered on his late wife.
He thought of their love for each other, recounted his experiences after her
passage, and concluded that life was not fair to him. Memories of the past, sweet
and ugly, continued to pop up.
Swiftly, his mind played a fast one, threw up scenarios where he faced similar pressure in the past, when close friends and relatives, including Parents, relations and friends of his late wife, for good reasons urged him to remarry. He remembered like yesterday, how on several occasions he rejected those calls.
He thought of Michael, his Son.
He thought about the love they share. He recalled the sacrifices, he made to
bring him to the stage he is in life. He could hear clearly, the kind words of
his Son playing back from a bit of diverse events. One of such voices, was
particularly unique, interesting, and eventful, however, the way it pops up
presently, he could not clearly define its role, in view of the situation that
confronts him: context and dimension.
He could hear the voice of Michael,
advising him to remarry. He remembered vividly, the encounter, when his son
reminded him that one day, like most people of his age, he will marry and leave
him (the father), to settle down with his wife. But, what bothers him most at
the moment, was the appeal of the Son, asking him (the father), to remarry
before he settled down for his own marriage. This particular encounter was
remarkable, and right now worrisome. It was the last discussion they had before
he set out to meet Madam Celina, to play his fatherly role towards resolving
the challenge faced by the Son, in the proposed marriage with Celina’s
daughter. The parting shut of that engagement between father and Son, was when
Michael expressed in very strong terms, his unhappiness that the father has
refused to remarry.
Michael, had drawn his Father’s attention
to the fact that nature may be using the behavior of his fiancés mother, Madam
Celina to delay his marriage, so that the father could settle down, before he
can marry. He recalled that when his son said that, he dismissed it out rightly,
as a non-issue. He maintained that such does not arise, and encouraged the son to
go ahead with his marriage plans. He, essentially informed him, he was not having
any affair, and will not suddenly jump into any marriage, just like that.
He has searched his head, and
reasoned deeply as he always do in critical situations, yet finds it extremely
difficult to understand why this particular discussion of theirs, has continued
to replay unabatedly in his mind. He could not understand the relationship
between the words of his son and the mind boggling lines released by Madam
Celina, in her didactic renditions.
The story is continuing… keep following us
No comments:
Post a Comment