If we truly understood how intensely life can happen to anyone, there would be just one criterion for choosing a life partner—kindness.
Not the “tall, dark, handsome, and rich” or the well-endowed (front and back) narratives.
This sobering realisation has once again dawned on me following an experience an acquaintance recently shared.
Read her account:
“My relative was a widower. His first marriage was short-lived because his wife died from health complications. It was a childless marriage.
About two years after her passing, some of us—his female relatives—decided to help him find another life partner.
The first lady we found for him… he liked her a lot, but distance was an issue for her, and she wasn’t keen on relocating to his base. A few months later, that chapter was closed, and we resumed our search.
Eventually, we settled on a young lady from a nearby community, though she already had a child—a son under five years old at the time.
A few months into their communication, I sought his opinion, and it didn’t seem like he was crazy about her as a marital partner. I encouraged him to be honest about his reservations.
His exact words were: ‘She’s a local girl. She doesn’t even know how to dress well.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked. He nodded.
I told him to gently guide her in areas where she needed improvement but, more importantly, not to overlook who she was at her core.
He admitted that she was peaceful and hardworking.
Today, their marriage is almost 10 years strong, and the only child of that union is the son she brought into the marriage, whom he has adopted as his own. According to doctors, she is not the reason they have yet to have another child.
Whenever I observe the love in their body language, I ask myself: What if he had missed this gem over something so superficial? Would his life have been this happy and peaceful had he chosen someone he felt was ‘up to his standards’?”
I have a colleague who, when he was ready to settle down, became serious about a lady he liked very much. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual. So, he moved on and quickly married another woman.
Months into the marriage, he started expressing concerns. According to him, she wasn’t making any effort to look sexy.
To cut a long story short, his health took a drastic turn a few years later. A major organ failed, and the ordeal drained their resources.
For years, he was in and out of hospitals. Friends stepped in with material support. Their young children, who needed their mother’s full attention, had to rely on their grandmother most of the time because their mother was always by his side.
Recently, he was given a clean bill of health, and in all his testimonies, he spoke only of his wife’s sacrifices and unwavering support.”
From Oby…
I have always believed that one of the most important prayers we should say is:
“May God not let us miss people who are worth it in pursuit of the ephemeral.”
We all know that fleeting desires are a great challenge for the average human being.
Imagine the gems these men would have missed in pursuit of an ideal that life eventually humbled them into realising was unnecessary.
Sometimes, life’s hardest blows are necessary, forcing us to see how fleeting certain things truly are.
Would “sexy” have mattered in those dark moments of the second man’s life?
Truly, the ways of life are deep!
We don’t even realise when we are wrestling with life over what we want versus what life knows is best for us. But thankfully, life always wins!
Life always has rude shocks up its sleeves, yet we live as though the tides will never turn.
These days, when I sense that someone’s interest in me is based on ephemeral reasons, they do not receive an accommodating energy from me.
Life has become such that people should reserve their energy for those they can count on when the chips are down.
