The One Whose Love Lit the Path Away by Linda Somiari-Stewart
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Before heartbreak ever touched her, in the quiet village of Nkworobi, lived a maiden named Awele.She was thoughtful and steady, the kind of woman whose silence could ease tension and whose laughter warmed without shouting. Raised by elders who taught her to love with both tenderness and discernment, Awele learned early that love must have both roots and wings.She had known many suitors.Men with delicate sandals and empty heads.Warriors full of muscle and pride but short on promise.Scholars whose mouths dripped proverbs but whose lives lacked principle.None moved her.Then one Harmattan evening, under a dry and whispering sky, she met Dayo.Dayo.He came like rain on a tired roof.Calm. Warm. Present.He smelled of palm kernel oil and frankincense - earthy, sacred.His laughter had an ease to it.His silences made space for thought.They often met beneath her father’s mango tree, speaking gently into the dusk.No performances. No masks. Just two souls learning each other’s personalities beyond the surface.Awele thought, “My prayers have worn shoes and walked into my life.”When she fell ill, he brought her "ofe oha" from his mother's kitchen.He spoke of women as equals, not ornaments.He listened when she whispered.He listened when she roared.Soon, even the market women began to say,“These two? Their stars are learning to sing together.”And one golden evening, as mangoes ripened in the trees, Dayo asked,“Awele, will you walk life with me?”She smiled.Her heart answered yes before her lips did.But Awele was her grandmother’s child - a woman who had once said,“Before two rivers merge, test the depth, not just the sweetness.”So she asked,“Shall we visit Old Mama Ijeoma, the one who reads blood and knows its quiet wars?”Dayo nodded.“Let’s tick all boxes. Even the ones we hope are empty.”Mama Ijeoma was no ordinary woman.She had served as a trainee nurse during the First World War and returned with battlefield knowledge.It was she who first taught the village that Abiku - the child who comes and goes - was not a curse, but a condition.Sickle Cell, she called it.Through hygiene, food, herbs, and simple knowledge, she helped many live longer, fuller lives.The villagers called her godmother.Awele and Dayo went to see her, hands clasped and hearts full.Mama Ijeoma pricked their fingers gently and mixed the blood with some liquid, which the villagers dubbed sacred water.She watched the result rise like truth from a calabash.She frowned.“You are both AS,” she said.“The signs are ominous and loud. The path ahead is not kind.”Silence fell.Awele whispered,“Can this be reversed with fasting, anointing oil, or libation?”Mama Ijeoma looked at her with the eyes of someone who had buried too many small coffins.She said nothing. She didn’t need to.Outside, beneath the udara tree, the two lovers sat, eyes gazing far and focused on nothing in particular. Awele waited for Dayo to say what many say:Let’s try. Love will conquer.But Dayo said instead,“I love you too much to create a child with you who may inherit pain.”Awele’s spirit trembled, but it did not break.They wept together.Then they walked apart.And though their love was real, they both knew that sometimes, the most loving path is the one that turns away.Years passed. Awele danced again at her traditional wedding.Dayo married another, after testing, of course.The former lovebirds greeted each other at the village square on market days with warm eyes and no regret.Yet on quiet nights, when the sky hummed low,Awele would whisper to the stars:“Love was not defeated.It simply chose wisdom.”--------------------Griot’s Reflection- True love protects before it professes. Let your affection be wise enough to avoid preventable sorrow.- Do not wait for feelings to lead where knowledge was meant to go first. Know your genotype. Know your partner’s.- Sometimes, walking away is the most significant proof of love. Painful now. Merciful later.