A story from one Rose Kariuki Njeri
So 8 years ago the darkest day of my life happened, even today I have never moved on from what happened in that eventful day, I don’t think I am even close to moving on. It was on a Saturday morning, the day that was supposed to be the biggest day of my whole entire life… It was my wedding day but it turned out to be my mourning day. Things had gone as planned, my culture’s wedding ceremony is complicated but fun and the events leading up to the actual wedding day are thrilling. I was up in my room at my parents house been prepared for my big day by mostly my friends and some hired beauticians.
Even today I still remember how great I looked in that dress, I had rented it but I bought it later and still have it to this day. The moment or rather the day itself is so intense that you forget almost everything especially bad that has ever happened to your life. On checking around, everything was perfect, people were behaving normally and everyone was all smiles. It’s not after some time that I started realising that the event was taking more time than expected because by that time, I was not supposed to be at home.
I asked one of my aunts and she said they are just ironing things out and we will leave in a short time. That short time became a long time and by the time I came to my senses and realised this was not happening, it was very late in the day, I think I was the last one to accept that fact. I cried so much that I ran out of tears, no one was telling me what was up. I called my fiance who told me he had had enough of my family’s gluttonous nature and that he called the whole thing off while he was waiting in the church. Later is when I found out that when their guys came to pick me up, my aunts and a few other women demanded an additional 50,000 at the gate in order to let me go even though everything including the bride price had already been negotiated before and agreed.
A few weeks later we met and he told me he can no longer marry me, the wedding took him a lot emotionally and physically. He had borrowed money from relatives, friends and banks for the wedding and from what I heard, when he was told that my folks were withholding me for more cash, it broke his heart but long story short he moved on, 3 years later married another person and now am still here.
I still wish I could turn back time because I knew the kind of people my aunts were and I knew they could do something like that but I didn’t do anything about it. I have tried to move on but it’s impossible. I know he should have been more considerate but it’s done now.