Taking Chances – Episode 15

****EPISODE 15****

Any outsider who examined how the marriage of Jide and Daisy came about might come to the conclusion that Daisy is a gold digger or was paying back a debt to Mama or at worst a confused girl who allowed her emotions

direct her blindly. But Daisy might probably not be that because, for as much as anyone cares to listen, she truly loves Jide, hers is a love that budded and flourished for over 6 years that even sometimes she wonders if such a love could ever exist.

It all started with her sojourn to America and her later acquaintance

with Mrs. Bimpe Olukoya, preferably called Mama by all, a meeting whose history was both eventful and tragic.

Daisy Chinwe Adelade (for that was her maiden name) was born to Laide Adelade and John Okoye, she was however a product of a love affair gone sour, born out of wedlock and raised without the love of any of her parents, She grew up with her grandmother.

John’s parent had bluntly refused his marriage to Laide when he had intimated them with her pregnancy, they told him to concentrate on his studies and leave the Yoruba girl who might just be deceiving him afterall. John, regardless of how his parents wanted and eventually made him deny the pregnancy knew he was responsible, but wasn’t courageous enough to stand up against them or rather it was more about his cowardice and fright that controlled his choice to finally deny his responsibility to the distraught and heartbroken Laide.

Life continued. Someway, somehow through America Green card winnings, Laide left for America, happy for the chance to pick up her life again

she left behind barely one year old Daisy in the care of her grandmother in Ibefun, Ijebu-ode. She however, didn’t relent in making sure that Daisy had all she needed Financially, but she could not give her the love of a mother that every child so craved.

And so Daisy lived her early life wishing for the acceptance of her father and the love of a mother after she learnt of the circumstances surrounding her birth, but when that didn’t happen, she gradually relapsed into hatred for her father and anything that had to do with the Ibos, she felt that it was some unnamed customs of her father’s tribe

that had somehow influenced his decision to not marry her mother, she grew up with a grudge against him. Although he much later pushed to be associated with her and even invited her over during those years she was living in Boston.

But Daisy couldn’t totally erase her ill feeling towards the Ibos and had subconsciously craved for a means where she could detach herself from every trace of her paternity. That was one of the reason she had taken the chance with Jide, for he represented amongst others, the life that would align her with the Yoruba people she was more at home with and whose blood ran through her veins nevertheless her half relation with them.

Her father however, wanted otherwise, that being the reason he had

opposed her marriage with Jide wanting her to marry an Igbo suitor of

his instead.

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Daisy was invited over to Boston by her mother when she was about 17 years and just through with her Secondary school. Excitedly she bade her friends and family goodbye, it was a dream come true for her because it afforded her the opportunity to be closer to the mother who had loved her from afar in years past, and in addition, she would live in America where everyone craved to be, she was going to live a beautiful life and get the best of education.

It was a rare opportunity and she welcomed it with open arms, whatever grudge or fault she ever had against her mother forgiven and forgotten and she also found herself letting go of some of the hurt caused by her father. She was all ready to experience that bond that she had always envied in other girls and their mother and she reasoned that it was better to concentrate all her energy there. her Life wasn’t so unfortunate afterall.

Laide didn’t disappoint one bit, it was all too obvious that she ached and had been waiting for the reunion all her life, she wasted no time and grabbed every opportunity she could to make up for the loss and the years she had missed in the life of her only child and daughter for she was married to a white man there in America, but had no child to that effect.

Just a year after her sojourn and reunion, catastrophe struck, Daisy’s mum was diagnosed with cancer with the doctors predicting that she had just few months to live. Daisy got busy, Most of her educational trust fund went into the treatment in the hope that something could still be done to save her mum from dying. Laide however did not buy the idea of tampering with the money she had stashed away for her daughter’s education but Daisy was obstinate and cared more about saving her mum whom she was still getting to know. Since she was a co-signatory to the trust fund, she spared nothing at all.

TAKING CHANCES