You can run but can’t hide? III
I am here to honour my promise to you; to continue my story on my telephone encounter with Antie Amedo. Of course, she didn’t seem to comprehend why I had told my blood relations I was pregnant.
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I was awestruck; I simply held on to my phone and listened to her. “Ablah, this is your first pregnancy, you know that?” I said nothing. My mouth was wide-opened in utter shock. My forehead? Very creased out of frustration.
She continued, “do you know you still have a long way to go within your gestation period, and that anything can happen to your pregnancy?” I almost asked, “anything like what?” But I guess I was too shaken to utter a word.
Now, statements of that magnitude, emerging from the lips of the likes of Antie Amedo were to be taken seriously. Without any effort, a lump swelled in my throat. Tears began to spew out of my lachrymal glands; my heart beating faster.
Why was my own aunt who was supposed to be wishing me well, saying such negative things? She sounded as though she were going to perpetuate an act which could cause me to lose my baby. I felt scared. Yes, coming from Antie Amedo, I wasn’t going to take the matter on face value.
I already told you the other day that she refused to talk to my father for two decades and a half. Her reason? She claimed my father, who I honestly know was innocent of her accusation, had caused the mini bus which carried a group of family members from our village to the Kotoka International Airport to see my elder sister off when she was traveling to London, to run off to Accra without her. This was in the 80s.
Those were times when a whole township could accompany a traveller to the airport to bid him or her farewell. Sounds very absurd now, doesn’t it? Times have changed!
No one ever understood why she was so bitter for not being a part of that entourage. She held on to that pain so much, when my sister came to Ghana for her first visit in year 2000, she sent a piece of cloth to Antie Amedo. She refused to take that gift. Huh, that woman is maliciousness personified.
Antie Amedo continued speaking with a stern voice interlaced with spite, “Ablah, do not think everybody laughing with you love you in sincerity. You need to be careful. Now you have announced to everyone that you are pregnant. What if you get a miscarriage?”
With this statement I lost my patience. “God forbid! Antie Amedo, God forbid”, I said loudly. “How can you talk like that? That I will miscarry? Are you for or against me? Antie Amedo, I can’t believe this. Whaaaat? I want to give you full respect else I would have said you are an enchantress”.
With this statement she also flared up. “Oh, so when I am thinking of your safety, you’re calling me a witch eh?” She retorted. “We shall see. Ablah, you don’t know what the world is really like, you wouldn’t have exposed yourself to such danger”. With this, I cut the line. She called again. I refused to pick the call. She called two more times.
I refused to answer. Then she gave up. I felt very very angry, and of cause I had reason to be. How on earth could such thoughts have run through her mind? That telling my relatives about my pregnancy could bring me harm? As soon as I cut the line, I burst into uncontrollable tears.
I wept and wept and wept. Obodai had a hard time consoling me. Every little while, my aunt’s statement, “we shall see”, would come to mind. Antie Amedo had earned for herself, a reputation for being spiritually dubious. How sure could I be, that her “we shall see” was an empty threat? I dialed my mother’s number.
I wanted her to hear and know, so that if anything happened to my unborn baby and I, she would know who the culprit was. As soon as she answered her phone, I remembered the fact that she was hypertensive, and could suffer from a soaring blood pressure on hearing the news.
I immediately strengthened my voice when she asked why I was calling her so late at night. “I want to just let you know I have arrived safely in Accra”, I lied.
Remember I had earlier that day attended the Thanksgiving Service of my uncle who had been made a Catechist in our hometown – the venue where I had met with Antie Amedo.
My mother asked me to say hello to Obodai and wished me goodnight.
That night, sleep refused to hang on my penthouse lid. Tears were my breath. I wished I had a way of physically dealing with Antie Amedo. Her words had cut through me like pincers, and I wanted her to feel like I felt. I wanted to tell her my piece of mind.
All sorts of ways to make her pay for what she had done to me emotionally came to mind. When I picked the phone to call this wicked woman, Obodai snatched it and advised, “Ablah, nothing will happen to this baby and you. Do not be scared because we serve a living God. You will have your baby to the glory of the Almighty Father.
Don’t call her. Leave her to her devices. Battles as these are best worn on our knees; not with our physical strength”.
When my tears could pour no more, he advised that we enter into a time of prayer for divine protection for us and our baby. We prayed for about an hour, read Psalm 91 and fell off to sleep.
