My husband looked deeply into my eyes as he raised his glass, and we toasted our first wedding anniversary. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and before either of us could reach the hall to open it, it burst open and in came my worst nightmare dressed in a flowing lace boubou-my mother-in-law, followed by a few house servants dragging big suitcases.
“Oh my son!” she declared, removing my carefully laid out cushions and sprawling herself on the settee. She then started to explain a long winded story as to why her husband, my father in law, was to be blamed for some “terrible thing” and why she had to remove herself for the hundredth time from her marital home and come to occupy her son’s home.
She declared that she is here to “oversee the running of the house” all the while staring at me as if daring me to protest. I kept my cool, but inwardly I was shaking with rage and distress. “Why can’t she leave us alone to get on with our marriage?” I asked later that evening in our bedroom. My husband looked at me with tired eyes. “Darling, she is my mother, I can’t turn her out onto the street. It will only be a few weeks” he said soothingly, cradling my head onto his shoulder.
I tossed and turned all night, mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of critiques that I knew would come my way. The next morning, I rose and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, where I met her critically casting her eye over my pots and pans, and stocked food. “Where is the palm soup?” she demanded in her tribal tongue, hands on her hips. “Don’t you know that is my son’s favourite food?” “It got finished the other day” I muttered in English, determined not to rise to rise to the bait.

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The time was 5.15am. We were sprawled out on each other’s side of the bed.  I was looking at the ceiling. “I can’t believe this” I thought. I looked at the man sleeping next to me…He was snoring. In fact his snort could wake up the dead.
How could this man sleep through this? How could he not care? How could he not know we have a problem? In fact how could he not know he had a problem? I wanted to shake him but I didn’t. Maybe when he wakes up, I will tell him to find a solution to his problem. I thought.
I wanted to kick him, scream at him, curse at him or rather beg him to find a solution but he was in a state of oblivion and he looked peaceful like a baby with no care in the world.
This is not the life he promised me, this is not the life I bargained for. This is not the life. This is not life. I covered my head with my pillow and began sobbing silently underneath it.
I met Ekem at a friend’s dinner party a year ago. He stood out in a crowd of well-dressed men-he was the only one not wearing a tie or in his work clothes .
He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. I could hear his voice from where I was standing. It was calm and very soothing to the soul. And so when he lifted his head to looked my way. It was love at first sight.
My heart skipped a beat and did the waltz. I could hear fireworks and church bells in my ears. I turned away embarrassed at how his eyes looked through me.
At dinner time, as if by divine intervention someone placed Ekem across from me. Between taking spoonfuls of my curried rice and lobsters, I had felt his eyes before I looked up. I could barely eat, I guess he couldn’t either.
I excused myself to pick a call. It was one I didn’t want to but I was getting uncomfortable and had to pick it. Walking down the hallway with the phone to my ear, I stopped at a corner and heard footsteps closing in. He came to me like a dream and asked for my number once I had hanged up on the phone. And that began our love story.
I was swept off my feet in no time and three months after our meeting we were talking marriage and kids. One fine night, he proposed to me after a romantic night out. He had always been a man of many words but that night he lacked the words to express his feelings. I looked at him; he looked me in the eye as he professed his undying love to me. It was what I wanted at that time, he was what I needed at that time and I am sure he needed me too. But at that moment we restrained ourselves. We wanted to wait till the wedding day. We wanted that night to be very special.
“Hey beautiful, awake already?” he interrupted my reverie. This time around I had found myself well positioned on the bed.  “What were you dreaming about with your eyes open, hmm?” I looked at the man unbelievably. How can he stay calm in times like this.  I didn’t say anything but composed myself.

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GC Life 101 is a new feature on GhanaCelebrities.Com. This will look at various life realities in short story forms as we try to entertain, educate and inform our readers on a variety of life experiences. Articles for GC Life 101 will be filed under Blog.
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At Christmas and even before the festive season, lots of churches advertise their programs on radio and television inviting people to attend. As if the above is not enough, majority who can’t afford advertisement on the above networks also advertise via posters on every available space [walls] in Ghana despite the fact most of these walls have inscriptions on them indicating no posters allowed.

After my friend’s (Kwaku) ordeal with a pastor, it has changed my perception about going to church. Anytime I see people rushing to church on Sundays, it makes me laugh my heart out.  I know it’s weird, but must church activities be advertised? Must church activities be forced down the throats of the would-be-congregations?

Now churches are springing up on daily basis in Ghana. Every available space i.e. cinemas and football playing fields are/has been turned to a church premise. I know very soon, just very soon, nightclubs will be evaded by these pastors. It’s just a matter of time.

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