My husband’s stubborness cost him his life-Funto

-Chioma Gabriel ...as submitted by Femi Fasanya.

My name is Funto; I am a widow at an age less than 30 years and with a child that is barely eight months. This is the story of my life so far…

I met Dan during my National Youth Service Corps programme about five years ago. We met when he was in his final year in university in the state I was serving. We dated a few years from that point till he graduated and got a job.
Not long afterwards, he proposed to me and I didn’t give him my consent until I spoke to my mum about him. She went to pray and what she was told was that people in his family who do well don’t live long. I was worried about that but Dan was on a trip and I couldn’t do much. As if to confirm what my mother said, when Dan returned from his trip, he came back with the death story of one of his aunty that was doing well and supporting members of the family.

I immediately wanted to leave the relationship but because of the emotion and love that I had for him, we continued. Our courtship was not all fairytale. We had our challenges and on several occasions, I would have walked out of the relationship. Why did I eventually get married to him? I guess the answer lies in the fact that he was teachable (that was what I thought until after marriage) and he was the only committed Christian in his family. I believed that with his commitment to God all other things could be taken care of.

We got married amidst glamour, pomp and pageantry. Dan was fortunate to be working in a place where doors of favor were opened to him..
A few months after our marriage, all hell seemed to break loose between us. He became controlling and always insisted on what he wanted to the point of even dictating what I was to eat or wear; who I would see, who should visit me and so on. Often times, he would bluntly tell me that I should pack out if I wanted and that years later his child would come looking for him.. Before I had our child, I developed high blood pressure that almost cost me my life during the labor but for the mercy of God . The name I was called by nurses and patients that heard my story was miracle woman.

Was my marriage all hell? My answer is NO. Yet, one thing might have prevented the death of my husband at such an early age if my husband was not stubborn and always wanted to do things his own way; he would have been alive today if he had the ability to listen to people and not stubbornly do his will. Two days before his death, a man of God had told him that he shouldn’t take a trip to his town (this I didn’t know until two weeks after his death). I also felt strange about the trip he wanted to make. On the day of his death, I asked him not to take the trip since what he wanted to go home for (burial arrangement of his mum’s family member) had been shifted to the following month. I called his sister to find out if there had been any change of arrangement concerning the burial and she said no. When she called him on the issue, he practically shouted her down and took the journey from which he never returned .

On his way back, he had a ghastly accident that cost him his life and an age a little above 35 years. If only he had listened to people; if only he had taken serious the prophesy I shared with him when he asked my hand in marriage and that of the man of God that instructed him not to go to his home town for now.