Title: My Almost Happily Ever After
Everyone talks of a happy ever after. I craved it too. Did I ever get one?
Every romantic movie I ever watched ended up terribly sweet, with grand gestures and golden sunsets. I wanted a love like that storybook love. The kind Disney promised. I knew they were all fairy tales, but I prayed so hard to be part of one someday.
Then I met Femi. Oluwafemi Korede Ajani.
He wasn’t a prince, but he was everything I ever dreamed of and more. Sweet, grounded, patient, God-fearing. The first time I saw him, he wasn’t wearing a crown. He was on stage, leading praise at Christ Revival Ministries.
It was my first time there. I had just lost my mother, the last of my parents. My father had passed two years earlier. My heart was wrecked, my soul a dark pit. That day, I just needed to breathe. I didn’t know a song could lift me like that until Femi’s voice filled the room.
We met properly after the service. I was one of the new members recognized. And by what I still believe was divine design, Femi was assigned to follow up with us.
I remember the scent of his cologne, a mix of pawpaw and coconut, my father’s favorite. His smile felt like light. His voice gentle. He made me laugh. Over time, we became friends. Not secret friends, we were believers. Our bond grew with each group visit, every church program, every outing.
After five beautiful months of friendship, he took me on a date. The way he looked at me, I could feel every unspoken word. He didn’t say much, but I understood him clearly. Later came his proposal, not with bended knee, but seated beside me after a walk on the beach, holding my hand as he said, "Let me be your husband, and you my wife. Please."
How could I say no?
Our wedding was simple but sweet. We moved into his newly completed three-storey house in Ikeja. My father’s apartment was rented out. We were set to begin our life as husband and wife, planning the future, naming our children before they came, dreaming of a daughter with my features, a son with his.
But the children never came.
Miscarriage followed miscarriage. I started to feel cursed. His parents certainly believed I was. They blamed me, for my losses, for my sorrow, for their son not having an heir.
Yet, Femi stood by me.
He never doubted me. He prayed, hoped, and cried with me. He held me through the nights, wiped my tears, kissed my scars, called me beautiful when I felt like a shadow.
Femi was everything.
And then he died.
After a night of laughter, after the sweetest love we had ever made, not for children this time, just love. He died in his sleep, arms still wrapped around me.
I thought he was playing.
He wasn’t.
I screamed. I wept. I begged him to come back. But my Femi was gone. Just like that.
They say death comes like a thief. That morning, it stole my whole world.
For days, I blamed him. Then, I blamed myself.
Everything I touched seemed to die, my parents, my pregnancies, my pets, even the plants in my garden. Maybe I was cursed. Maybe his parents were right. Maybe I wasn’t made for happiness.
Three years have passed.
Every Sunday, I return to the place we first met. I sit on the same pew. The praise team sings. The messages still make me weep. And in that place, I still feel him. In every note. In every breath.
Maybe I didn’t get a happy ever after. Maybe that’s just not how my story ends.
But I got to love. To be loved. Fully, deeply, without condition. And maybe, just maybe, that was my miracle.
This might not be a fairytale ending.
But it is mine.
And it was beautiful.
—Mrs. Ayomide Jane Oluwafemi
