Our marriage was only three months old when I saw my husband smoking for the first time. I was shocked. I thought it was a prank to see how I will react. I rushed to him, snatched it from his hand, and threw it away. I got burnt on the finger but that didnโt bother me a lot. I said, โWhat kind of joke is that? Itโs not funny, donโt ever do it again.โ And then he showed me the whole pack in his pocket. I said, โAre you ok? Where from this? Where did you pick it from?โ He told me, โIt started when I was in secondary school.โ[โฆ]CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLEโถ
โYou mean youโve been doing it even when we were dating?โ
โIt wasnโt consistent. I did it intermittently.โ
โWow. Youโre making me feel like I was blind then.โ
โNo, not at all. Iโve been trying to stop but time and time again I go back to it.โ
โThen today would be the last time youโll do it.โ
We dated for almost two years. He was a friend for over three years, I never suspected that he could do such a thing. This is a man I found in the church. He got me with his dedication to the things of the Lord. He never missed church and never missed an opportunity to talk about the Lord to anyone who will listen. I asked him, โSo God is aware that youโve been smoking? Or you hid it from him too?โ He found my question funny so he laughed but I was serious. I just didnโt understand why I could be closer to him for all those years and still didnโt catch that habit of his.
I took the pack from him and said, โPromise me. Promise me that it would never happen again.โ He shuffled off my presence. I looked at the pack and thought of what I should do with it. In the end, I threw it in my side of the drawer with the aim of discarding it whenever I step out of the house. I forgot about it for two days. I went back and it wasnโt there. I called him, โTony, you came for the pack?โ He smiled at me. I said, โTony, what did you do to it? You finished it or you threw it away?โ Again he smiled. I got what he wanted to say with those smiles. I felt like a failure. Like a clown who laughs at his own jokes.
We had a serious conversation that lasted for almost two hours in the hall. When we went to bed we continued until one of us fell asleep. We were brainstorming on how he could give up and the kind of help he needed to stop. I asked if anyone knows about it and he said only a couple of his friends. He had been able to hide it so well that none of his family members knew that he smoked. I told him, โNo one knows about it thatโs why youโre struggling to stop. Weโll have to tell someone. Someone you could be accountable to.โ He retorted, โNow you know. Help me be accountable to you.โ
It got worse. He stopped hiding it. Heโll do it in the house in my presence. The scents were not the same. I donโt know the differences but I felt some of the scents were heavier on the nose than others. I pressed him and he confessed that sometimes he does the weed. โI screamed, โYou mean ntampi?โ He answered, โI donโt do it often, trust me.โ
That confession alone was enough to drain all the romance in me. I couldnโt kiss my husband again. I was scared I would get high if I did. He touched me and I shivered. I started hiding from him. When he gets high like that and he jumps on me in the night, the shuperu could last all night. There was no love in it so I didnโt enjoy it. I will run dry and start getting cuts here and there. Because of that, I dread the night. I wore jeans shorts to sleep. If there was a cage around, I would have slept in and locked it so he wouldnโt get access to me.
For three years, he was smoking intensively. All attempts to get him to stop proved futile. I reported it to his parents and they didnโt believe me until I sent them photos of him doing it. They called him home. I wasnโt there when he went but they told me, โWeโve spoken to him at length. He listened. He promised to stop. Keep an eye on him. If he starts again tell us.โ It looked like every week I was reporting him to them so at some point they also gave up on him.
After doing all that, on Sundays, heโll be the one to wake me up and tell me to get ready for church. There was this young pastor in our church whom everyone revered, including my husband. When all hope to get him to stop was over, I ran to this man of God and complained to him. He whispered in surprise, โYour husband? You mean Anthony?โ I answered, โYou wonโt believe it. No one believes me when I tell them. Yes, my husband is a heavy smoker.โ He called him one day after church and we sat to talk about it. His humility in front of the pastor got me emotional. The pastor advised, โThe devil destroys the seed when it sees how tall the tree would grow. Donโt give the devil a chance.โ
We had been married for three years without a child. I threw that one in while we were still in the presence of the pastor. I said, โI believe itโs the reason God has refused to bless us with a child. He doesnโt want our baby to start getting high on its first day on earth.โ
In the end, the pastor took it upon himself to help him stop. He told him, โAnytime you get the urge to do it, drink water and call me.โ God being so good, he listened to the pastor and for a whole year, they worked together until my husband stopped smoking. We started working diligently toward having a child. We visited facilities, did checkups every now and then, and followed the advice of specialists. It took us three more years before we finally conceived.
You can imagine my happiness when I found out that I was pregnant. Everything around me turned beautiful. I said thank you to my husband every morning even when he hasnโt done anything of note. I slept and prayed for the baby that was growing in me.
I was washing my husbandโs clothes when I found condensed milk toffee in his pocket. I was like, โHe has started buying these toffees in traffic? Old man like him eating toffees?โ I took the wrapper off and threw it in my mouth. It tasted someway but the condensed milk taste overshadowed that subtle funny taste. I munched on it until it finished in my mouth. Iโd finished washing and was trying to get up to go and hang them but I couldnโt get up. All of a sudden, I started getting weaker at the knee. My vision got blurry and my heart started burning. I couldnโt even shout for him. I fell off the chair I was sitting on. Maybe it was the sound of the fall that drew his attention. I couldnโt see anything again. I woke up in the hospital, feeling weightless and lost.
He was there crying when I opened my eyes. I asked him, โWhat happened?โ He couldnโt say anything. Later the nurse told me everything. Iโd been out for over two hours and Iโd lost the pregnancy. It was my turn to cry. I kept asking him what happened and he was begging me not to say anything. He said, โPlease donโt mention what you ate when the doctor asks you. I beg you in the name of God. Else I would end up in jail.โ
The doctor came around and asked questions about what I ate or inhaled. I told him, โI donโt really remember. Everything happened so fast. I was even washing.โ I lied through all the questions. He said, โThatโs so strange.โ I was discharged, came home, and cried for days. That toffee wasnโt just a toffee. He said itโs called โLord of the Toffee.โ He stopped smoking because we were complaining. He resorted to putting the weed in food and drinks so we wouldnโt know. I packed my things and left for my parentsโ house. He came by often, begging me to come back. โIโve learned my lessons. I will never ever touch that thing again. It will never happen again in this lifetime.โ
I listened to him. I went back home and for the last three years, weโve been trying to have a baby but to no avail. Yes, he has stopped and he is very transparent with me now. He tells me everything and puts me at the center of his world but what is important to me now is a baby. Iโm thirty-five going to thirty-six. Every new day gets me scared. Anytime I see the face of my menses, my heart breaks into pieces. I look up and say, โGod, is that the end of the road for us?โ
I pray it is not because that will kill meโto walk this earth without a child. The shame is too much for me now. They think Iโm the problem. They advise him to get another woman and try again with her. The shame I go through each day is enough to break the hardest of spirits but Iโm here, trusting God to come through for us once againโฆCLICK HERE TO READ MORE ARTICLES>>>ย