My grandmother's love

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My grandmother once told me about the love of your life. Never had she mentioned such before but that day.

She was basking under the sunlight, resting against the cashew tree with fragile tiny legs stretched out on the stool. I noticed the transformation of how her pleasant grimace quickly became sour as she narrated her love story.

Surprisingly, it wasn't my grandfather. I asked why she didn't marry the man but she told me the man died.

It was in the late 1950's and independence was very much in view and Nigerians were already ecstatic and jubilant. The political and economic tension was ebbing out and the civilization that's been rubbed on us by the westerners had peaked and almost perfected.
All over the gentrified streets of Lagos, perm-haired men and women dressed in fancy outfits shipped from overseas, walked about like cats with painted nails and long-eye lashes.

They would travel through states by means of Railways, spend hot and cold days that passed slowly, watching trees, land expanse, farm animals, villages, buildings, people and villages passed slowly by, behind their porthole windows in their private room on the trains.

The love-making part was dutifully left out of the story. But that was expected.

And when they finally alighted at the stations, hand in hand, they would explore the never-been-to places, seeking pleasures, stopping at expensive restaurants for lunch and retire to some small hotels when the stars finally fades away as early dawn approaches. How her lover died, she did not mentioned and out of courtesy, not desiring to make fresh the old wound in her heart. I decided against asking. All she said was he fell ill and died