Is It Real Love?

In life, we are confronted with enormous problems which shake up all plans of our life either for bad or for good. As we often say, man proposes and God disposes we sometimes accuse the Almighty God of not having given us what we want. Everything that God does is good, nothing can be said about it, the religious. Who would have preferred to suffer in this life? I think no one.

My name is Ashley Jennifer Mensah, 18 years old. My life was going well until the day my parents died in a traffic accident.

Here we are all seated in the living room. The guests came to greet everyone. For me, the world was falling apart and I could see everything but I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything. In my head, everything was empty. What was I going to become? Here we are in the problems. A road accident had taken the life of my parents, leaving us without support, without protection in a house where each was his own God.

I was never going to put my head on their knees again. Who was going to pull my hair screaming comb you? My mom was the nicest woman and my dad the sweetest man I know. We were all seated in the living room when my uncle Rodrigue and my uncle Joseph entered the courtyard with the coffins containing the body of my parents. The bodies are installed in their room on the conjugal bed. Everyone was going to see them for a last To God. When everyone finishes passing by, my uncle tells me to come back to the room.

Rodrigue: Ashley, go to the bedroom and stay there with them for a bit. If you have something to tell them, this is your last chance.

My uncle goes directly to his wife Éliane to take the envelopes of money that the guests had given. She had landed directly in front of the envelope table so as not to lose sight of the money under the indignant gaze of my grandmother and that of several of our neighbors.

Eliane: But where are you going with the money? Drop it here, I'll keep it.

Joseph: Do you want me to slap you in front of everyone here?

My grandmother Amandine calms my uncle who had only one desire, to end this funeral.

Amandine: Joseph calm down. She wants to put shame on us and go take care of the little one.

My uncle takes the envelopes and puts them in my hand and then walks me into the bedroom. Here I am for the first time in front of corpses. It's been one (1) month since I last saw mom and dad and here they are lying lifeless on this bed. I drop the envelopes and run to snuggle up in mum's arms like a 3 year old. My tears flow but no hugs from daddy to dry them. Her body was cold, no tender gesture as usual, no kisses. I didn't want to believe this cuddly mom and dad who only had kisses for us, won't even open their eyes to look at me. What did I not promise that day for them to wake up but nothing. They were there without saying anything, doing nothing. Now it's clear to me my mom and dad are gone. I burst into tears while my head is on my mother's chest crying hot tears, I hear my uncle screaming.

Joseph: Eliane what are you doing here?

Eliane: Look what this girl is doing. She leaves the money on the ground with the door wide open. What if someone comes in and steals it all?

Eliane was picking up the envelopes I had dropped. Joseph almost went crazy. If Lucie, my father's sister had not intervened, we would have had 3 deaths on the arm. My uncle pulls her out of the room, dragging her by the hair. This little moment of interruption didn't matter much to me because I only wanted my parents. I had been crying so much that I had lost my voice. Around 1 p.m., the door opens again and I understand that this was the last time I would see them again. The photographer takes one last photo of them and my uncle leads me out of the room. Grandmother Amandine stayed alone in the room for 25 minutes. After a while, she bursts into tears.

It is 3 pm and the coffins are ready for their last trip. We arrive at the cemetery and here I see their bodies locked in these coffins gradually disappearing in these two large holes. I do not know what took me and I wanted to stop them but my uncle Rodrigue prevents me and tells me calm down. How am I going to calm myself down if I saw and they were going to close the grave on them? I couldn't see anything anymore and little by little I lost my senses, the ground under my feet had disappeared.

I don't know how, but I had survived that bad, damned day. At night, I did not close my eyes. I just cried.

The next morning speechless, I am sitting next to my uncles and my grandmother Amandine who give me 60 of the 80 envelopes to contribute during the funeral.

Joseph: Take this money, it's for you and your little brother. I didn't open the envelopes because they are yours. This is the custom.

Ashley: Thanks uncle. But you haven't paid the fees yet!

Joseph: That's not your problem. It's up to me to take care of it. It's up to you to know where to keep them. It's your mother's money. Take good care of it.

Joseph gets up and trying to put on his sandals, he hears Eliane telling me.

Eliane: Give I will keep for you.

Joseph: I'm going to hurt you Eliane. Don't push me to the limit. You, go and deposit the money in your room then you go to your parents' room. This is now your room.

Eliane: No, I wanted this room for Monique and Sonia.

A single glance from Joseph was enough to silence Eliane. I am going to arrange my things and I am moving into my parents' room with the help of my grandmother. I start to take out my father's and mother's clothes to wash them. It had taken a little while, but I got there. Once washed and ironed well, I put them away in a big suitcase and put them next to the cupboard.

In the evening I went to fetch my little brother from mom's sister. When I returned, I went to the market to buy condiments for the cooking. When I got home, I noticed that my room had been searched. I talk to Joseph, who sets the record straight in the house.

"Ashley"

2 years later...

I left the family home very early. I was selling Attièkê and fish not far from the house. From the top of my 18 years, I expected nothing from life and life expected nothing from me.

The majority of my clients were prostitutes, people who were not social, but I didn't care. This business fed me, my grandmother and my little brother. As in the custom after the death of the eldest son, his property went to his brothers and his children. And at first glance, my father didn't have much. For my uncles, it was out of the question to send me to college with their money.

Apart from the addiction we live in with dad in my grandfather's house, we had nothing left. A year later, I found myself selling Attièkê to be able to pay for my little brother's school fees. After counting the funeral money, I decide to put them in a savings account for my little brother Idriss. I was managing.

I had had a cabin built behind the walls of the house so another neighbor had joined me as well as a young man from the neighborhood. They too sold food to survive. Sheltered from the rain, the wind and the cold, we kept company between neighbors.

I was not afraid since most of my neighbor Stéphane's clients were often police officers who came to drink coffee at his place. The police had nicknamed the two saleswomen and the queer referred to the homosexuality of our neighbor Stéphane, still nicknamed Stéphanie.

The latter did not hide it and the inhabitants of the district left him alone because despite the homophobia that reigned in their hearts, Stéphane was the only one, the one who had a small car. If someone falls ill at night, they take them to the hospital with their car and the hospital was too far away. The last time some young people from the neighborhood assaulted him, he was hospitalized for 6 days.

In the same week, a young boy fell very ill in the neighborhood. There was a man who owns a motorbike, but transporting a sick child on a motorbike was not easy because on the way to the CNHU, they had a serious accident and unfortunately the child died. There was a taxi driver in the area but unfortunately he moved after helping three (3) people. In order not to help anyone anymore, he preferred to leave slowly.

Everyone quickly understood that Stéphane's kindness had limits because he had decided to sell his small car to find a studio far from home. A few men from the neighborhood went to apologize to him, but since that day no one looks at him askance.

After a long evening of work, I come home at 1 am exhausted with my grandmother and my little brother on my back. We don't hang around too much. Besides, it's Sunday and I had to go to bed very early to go to the market. Around 1 p.m., I wake up and take a shower. I run to the market. On my return, I see Sonia who was falling in love with the neighbor's son and I pretend I don't have them. Sonia is my cousin, she was older than me. Her father, my uncle did not miss him, he surprised them and beat his daughter. While I was about to leave, Monique, Sonia's big sister, comes to me and sees her face, she had not come to play.

Monique: You knew dad was behind you but you walked by without warning Sonia. Tell me, why did you do that Ashley?

Ashley: You two forbade me to interfere in your life so I stay away from you that's all. Where is the problem ?

Monique: Go over there jealous there. You just wanted dad to surprise them to steal our place. But you are overcome in the name of Jesus.

Ashley: You steal what Monique?

Monique: Our heritage, your father is already dead and I don't know what you are still doing in this house. You are waiting for my father to die too to take the family home, but that will not happen.

Ashley: You are pitiful Monique. This house belongs to everyone. So get you and your mom out of your dreams.

Suddenly, I see this idiot pushing her foot towards the large basin filled with fish and Attiékê to spill everything on the ground. I barely caught her foot in anger and gave her a good beating.