IS IT 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.