Way back in the early 2000s, I didn't know much about the consequences of couples with unmatched genotypes. I had an uncle whose wife's genotype didn't match his and they had children who died before our eyes and those periods, I was shallow enough to believe that he used his three children for rituals because they were rich but even at that I kept wondering why would he sacrifice his three children out of five for rituals?
Years passed and more sense stepped into me and I got to understand that it's true, it's sickle cell disease that was the course of the children's death. I got to know this when we moved into the same compound with them because there were days I would hear the husband and wife quarrelling, especially with the way the wife was still keeping the belongings of her lovely deceased children.
Sometimes she would bring out the photo albums outside, soaked in tears while flipping the paper photo album containing the photos of the children
"Augustine my brother, this attitude of my wife is very depressing to me. I've tried many times to keep her away from the Children's items but she refused to let go" This was my Uncle, Uncle Monday, telling my dad in our parlour during one of those early nights I was pretending to be asleep on the mat in the parlour.
"Sir, I understand the pain. I once experienced this when my younger brother passed away. It was hard to let go of his belongings. Not until my elder brother burnt everything in my absence. I don't know how she's going to take it but I suggest you take the same step." My dad responded very maturely as if he was talking to someone younger than him, meanwhile, Uncle Monday was far older than him. That night, Uncle Monday okayed what my dad suggested and said he would see about that and he left.
The following day was a Thursday which had us stay in school till 4:00pm for extra moral lessons, on getting home that day under the cool humid weather about to rain, shouts were oozing out of the compound and people were gathered and fear gripped me immediately I noticed the scene from a distance before our compound, I thought Maybe someone has died but getting to the compound, it was my uncle's wife raining fire and brimstone on the husband. Her husband made a clean sweep of everything left of the deceased children and burned them.
"Why did he do this to me? The only thing I have left of Nedum, Joy and Daniel!" She was on top of her voice, with her wrapper almost ripped off while rolling on the floor in tears. The women around held her firmly and consoled her to stop crying and also cautioned her to stop insulting her husband because he did the best thing but no, the more they consoled her, the more she vibrated in anger.
Fortunately, the humid cloud darkened more and before we knew it, the cloud opened its window and it started raining heavily which quenched the noise and anger that evening and extended to the deep of the night.
Maybe she later did the crying in her closet but we never saw her crying the way she was doing. The approach by the husband did work.
Thanks for reading.