MY LOVE STORY

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"If you go ahead with the wedding ceremony, then you'll cease to be my child". Those were the exact words of my father. What will I do? Sometimes, I feel like running away from my parents, but that's against our beliefs. Even if I run, where do I run to? Who do I run to? All my uncles are not in support too. It's just a thought though.
My name is Halimah and I am the fifth daughter of my parents. I am not yet married although I am twenty-nine (29) years old. My parents have refused to give their consent and blessings to my marriage with Uche because to them, it's just impossible. Sometimes, I wonder if that's the only excuse they can give. They constantly remind me how productive my elder sisters marriages are, there is almost no day that my mother does not remind me how my sisters are doing well in their marriages " Look at zaynab, Alhaji is taking adequate care of her, she is a master's degree holder, a lecturer in polytechnic, is her marriage not blissful? Halimah, why do you want other women to look at me and say that I didn't train you properly? Why do you want to bring shame and misfortune to this family?" I know that my Uche is not a misfortune or shame rather, he is my star, my fortune and my goodluck.
I met Uche in my second year in the university. At this time, I had lost hope of graduating with my course mates. I cannot forget that friday evening, I had refused going home after seeing my results; I had three courses to re-sit, who smiles after seeing such result? There and then, I knew that my father will kill me. I was still buried in this thought when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

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"I have been observing you from afar, is everything ok?"he said. I managed to smile and responded that all was well. The look on my face and my response didn't send him away he pulled out a chair and sat close to me in the cafetaria where I had been sitting for hours. We sat there for thirty minutes without saying a word to each other.

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"My name is Halimah" I said before I could stop myself, I could not believe that I had initiated a discourse with a total stranger. He introduced himself as Uche Okechukwu, a final year student of Linguistics. I told him my problem immediately I discovered that we were of the same department. He ask me to join his tutorial classes every saturday and I agreed, we exchanged our digits and went home smiling. He called me the following day to remind me of the class at 12pm and I hurried down there. That was how we became friends; we spent time together in the school library and cafeteria, I should be ashamed to say this; from the day I met him untill the day he graduated, Uche did all my assignments and wrote all my term papers.

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He almost impersonated me to write a tedious examination but I refused to oblige, I didn't want him to be rusticated in his finals because of me. Did I tell you? Our course mates termed us " An Item", and yes, we were.

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I accepted to be his girlfriend in my third year, then he was leaving for NYSC. I missed him so much those months, I prayed for him and God did answer my prayers.