He is one of the workmen whose services I engaged. At a point, I noticed that he was travelling to his village quite often, so I asked him what was going on.
He told me that his father had suffered a stroke. After empathising with him, I asked how his mother was coping with the burden of being a caregiver to her ailing husband.
He told me that his mother had been away since November 2025 because her daughter had a baby.
Meaning that she has not set eyes on her husband since his health crisis began.
When I asked who was taking care of his father, he told me that his aunt, his father’s younger sister, had become his caregiver, alongside another man in their community who is paid to give him a daily bath and massage.
His story reminded me of another one I heard some time ago.
The lady who assisted us with house cleaning had a second job that involved caregiving and cooking.
According to her, the person she was caring for was a man in his sixties who had suffered major paralysis following a stroke. His other caregiver was his younger brother, who was based in Europe.
As the story continued, I asked, “What about his wife and children?”
She told me that she only heard that he had a wife and children, but she had neither seen them visit nor heard them call him.
When stories like these come up, most people are quick to place the blame squarely on how badly the man must have treated his wife and children when all was well with him.
I often hear people say that many women harbour a “payback” intention for a husband who did not treat them well before becoming vulnerable and helpless.
And I struggle to understand how someone who regularly goes to God in prayer can approach that throne of mercy while still nursing unpleasant thoughts against a spouse they hope will someday end up at their mercy.
What if you get to that valley of vulnerability before your spouse?
Life hardly goes according to our whims.
What does a “clean heart”, which is what matters most to God, mean to you?
If a spouse has continued to treat you in ways you find unforgivable, why not move away and maintain a clean heart? If you choose to remain in that setting, then forgiveness becomes necessary so that your heart remains untainted before God.
If God calls you home first, it is the content of your heart that He will judge you by, not who did what to you.
May it never be a painful experience in the hands of a spouse that teaches anyone that it was a mistake to treat their blood relations shabbily because of marriage.
They have their flaws, but in most cases, our blood relations are our ultimate burden bearers. They often rise to the occasion when the world, including those we brought into our lives “for better or for worse”, turns its back on us.
I have seen a son die in his aged mother’s arms after being sent home from abroad when his health nosedived. His aged mother and sister nursed him until he breathed his last.
Neither his wife nor their children showed up while the ordeal lasted.
But at his funeral, the wife was present as the chief mourner, alongside children who did not understand the word “come” in their native language.
Of course, the only landed property he inherited from his father now belongs to his wife.
I have also seen a married woman who was sent back to her father’s house because she was grappling with mental health challenges. But her sisters, as their parents were already late, rose to the occasion and refused to let her carry that cross alone.
What I find inexcusable is the practice of encouraging children to turn their backs on the other parent who is grappling with vulnerability.
You cannot feed children the milk of heartlessness and expect not to have a taste of it someday.
Regular phone calls or occasional visits, that is all it may cost them.
Be mindful of how you treat your spouse, children, and blood relations because you really do not know who may drop everything to carry you through the valley of vulnerability tomorrow.
Those you think will always be there may become your biggest disappointment.
And someone you never bothered with when times were good may be the only one willing to lower their back for you to climb on and be carried.
It is a mistake to sacrifice one relationship for another.
And it is an even bigger mistake to keep hurting the vulnerable people in your space.
They may become the only strength available to you tomorrow.
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