13/04/2026
Sad!
My name is Kemi.
There is something I did in my life
something I can never forgive myself for.
I had only one younger sister.
Her name was Sade.
After our parents died, I became everything to her her sister, her mother, her protector.
At least that’s what people believed.
Sade was very different from me.
She was calm, respectful, and always smiling.
Even when we had nothing, she would say,
Don’t worry, sister, things will get better.
But me?
I was angry at life.
I felt cheated.
I was the one who struggled to feed us, to pay rent, to survive.
So when Sade started growing into a beautiful young girl people began to notice her.
And that was when my heart started changing.
People would come to our shop and say,
Ah, Sade is so beautiful.
Ah, she is well behaved.
She will marry a rich man one day.
Nobody talked about me.
Nobody saw my struggle.
Slowly jealousy entered my heart.
At first, I ignored it.
But it grew.
One day, a rich man came to our shop.
His name was Alhaji Musa.
He was old enough to be our father.
He looked at Sade in a way I didn’t like.
A few days later, he came back with gifts.
Rice. Money. Clothes.
Then he said the words that changed everything:
I want to marry your sister.
My heart skipped.
Sade was only 17.
She still wanted to go to school.
She had dreams.
That night, she came to me and said,
Sister, I don’t want to marry him. Please help me.
I looked at her.
I remembered all my struggles.
All the hunger.
All the nights I cried.
Then I looked at the money.
And something inside me broke.
I told her,
This is a good opportunity. Do you want us to keep suffering?
She started crying.
Sister, please I want to go to school, she begged.
But I didn’t listen.
I forced her.
Yes I forced my own sister into that marriage.
People praised me.
Kemi, you are wise.
You have secured your future.
But they didn’t know what I had done.
On the wedding day, Sade did not smile.
Not even once.
She just looked at me
With tears in her eyes.
That look
I still see it today.
After the marriage, life became easier for me.
Money was coming.
Food was plenty.
I even moved to a better house.
But Sade?
She became quiet.
Whenever I visited, she looked thinner weaker.
One day, she held my hand and said softly,
Sister I’m not happy.
I removed my hand.
Marriage is not easy. Endure it, I replied.
Those were the words I gave her.
Endure.
Months later I got a call.
A call that changed my life forever.
When I got to the hospital that day and saw Sade lying on that bed what the doctor told me made me wish I could turn back time
