Choosing Kindness in a World that Rewards Cruelty
If there was anyone who didn’t deserve her kindness, it was Aunty Bola. Aunty Bola had chased her and her mother out when her father died, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and ten thousand naira in her account. Who would have known that one day, the daughter of the once richest man in Agidi would become a beggar on the street?
But out of the ashes, she rose. Goodness had shone on her. Good fortune had smiled on her, and she had become wealthy, independent of her father’s riches.
She couldn’t believe her eyes that evening when the nanny she had hired for her son turned out to be Aunty Bola. The woman had become older, and it looked like life had been harsh to her, but you could still see that uncanny resemblance to her father. She couldn’t hold herself back from shouting, “Aunty Bola!”
Her aunt looked up and stared at her properly. A minute passed before recognition showed on her face.
“Omomurewa, is that you?”
“Yes, Aunty Bola, it’s me.” She didn’t know she had burst into tears until she heard the shaking in her voice.
Life had been so unfair to Aunty Bola. Her once breathtakingly beautiful aunt was now a shadow of herself. But was life really unfair? Did Aunty Bola not truly get what she deserved?
She looked at her, and the memories of all she had done to her mother and her flooded her head, how she and her uncles had sent them out of their house when she was just seven. How a trailer hit her mum while she was hawking akara so she could eat. She had to grow up as a cleaner in the famous brothel in Agidi while she watched her dad’s properties being squandered by his siblings. All the hatred she felt for her those years, blaming her for instigating this, for planning the accident that took her dad away.
She looked at her one more time and saw his face, Professor Ajibola Omomurewa Williams, her father. The wisest man she ever knew.
It took her back to one of the last conversations she ever had with him. She remembered it vividly. When her friend spoke badly about her in school and asked her a favor one week later, her father said, “Omomurewa, never forget to show kindness in a wicked world like ours.”
As those words echoed in her heart, she looked at Aunty Bola—really looked at her. The woman before her was broken, just as she herself had once been broken. The world had already punished Aunty Bola far more than revenge ever could.
She took a deep breath and made her choice.
“Aunty Bola,” she said softly, wiping her tears, “you’ll work here, but not as a nanny. You’ll help me manage my home.”
In the months that followed, she established a shop for her aunt and bought her a small home. Some nights, when bitterness tried to creep back into her heart, she would remember her father’s words. Kindness, she realized, wasn’t about whether someone deserved it. It was about who she chose to be in a world that had tried to make her cruel.
And in choosing kindness, she had finally set herself free.
Featured Image by Insspirito from Pixabay
