Olivia’s Inconvenient Choice

By Mary Odiong

My name is Olivia, a polytechnic dropout. I had great passion for education but was incapacitated by lack of funds. I had to discontinue for my siblings to begin secondary education. I am the first child of my parents, I have four siblings.

My father worked as a welder until sometime in November 2008 when one of the machines chopped off his right hand. Painful and sad as it was, the reality dawned on us when you discovered feeding and taking care of our sick mother was becoming a burden.

My mother has been down with stroke for the past 12 years, we do everything for her including feeding . She has begged God to take her life but death is not coming. We have prayed to God for healing but healing is not forthcoming. She weeps day and night on her bed.

Few months after my father lost his job by the very fact of his amputation, I started applying for jobs in nearly all the companies around. A job  as a clerk or cleaner would have helped. When I discovered that none of those companies needed my services, I applied to work as a room attendant/ receptionist in an hotel.

Immediately after submitting the application, I was called for an interview and thereafter employed, with the initial pay of ten thousand Naira a month.

That was good news. From this meager pay, we could buy food and medicine for our parents. Everything was going just fine at my place of work until early this month; a man called the customer service, he booked eight room and asked that I reserve them for the team of engineers who will be arriving Abuja from Lagos.

On the said date when they were supposed to come, I waited from morning till after midday. He had promised that they will arrive before 11.00 pm. Out of pressure I gave out one of the reserved rooms to another customer. Later in the evening they arrive and I took them in and one of them was left without a room because I gave it out. He threatened to report me to the management which could have yielded a bad result for me.

He gave the condition of sharing the same room with me since I was entitled to a spare room. For fear of being reported and with my innocent mind I accepted. He moved in with me and bahaved like the gentleman I saw in him for some minutes, just to wake up in the middle of the night with further threats. He later slept with me and apologized with some amount of money. 

My problem in life is my good heart, taking everyone as myself. I never dreamt that I could see myself in such mess. 

It was all my fault because I cherish my job so much and would not want to be sacked, partly because I feed my parents and siblings from my salary and mainly too because I don't want to go through the stress of finding another job.

I am hopeful that God will give me the grace to accept life the way it is. I find it very difficult to forgive myself after what happened. I don't know if seeing a counselor or psychologist would help.

I share this story with you so that you help me with suggestions on how to go through the healing process.