By: Uduak Osaro-Edobor
My ex-husband was a demon from hell. We were married for eighteen years and he used to abuse me mentally and emotionally. I was a top business executive while he was a renowned public speaker. I didn’t want our marriage to be the subject of the tabloids so I stayed in marriage because I was worried about what people would say.
Gary could sleep with anything in skirts even if a baboon wore one. Ironically, it was one of his side chicks that found his corpse in a hotel room after he suffered a cardiac arrest.
After his funeral, I decided to volunteer at St. Finbar’s Prison Outreach… a non profit organization that catered for prisoners. I believed that engaging in something new would be therapeutic for me so I delved into it head on.
I met Cross on one of our visits to the prison and we struck a conversation. He was so easy to talk to and I liked him. He told me that he was in prison for a fraud he knew nothing about and something in me believed him, I knew he was telling the truth. After hearing his story, I felt the nudge to help him and that’s exactly what I did. Two years later, with the help of some brilliant lawyers, the case was thrown out of court for lack of evidence. Cross was discharged and acquitted.
Read also: Story telling helps brands engage people
Life after prison was tough. He tried to work towards getting his life back but it wasn’t easy. To make matters worse, his wife had divorced him while he was in prison, turned their children against him and now she was with his best friend. He was really heartbroken. I was his support system. With me, he always had a shoulder to cry on. I was with him through the recurring nightmares, the rejection from people and the low self-esteem moments, I stood by him like the proverbial rock of Gibraltar. The press had a field day with my story but I couldn’t be bothered. I was tired of living my life on people’s terms.
Cross and I became very close and I got to know how awesome he was. I helped him through his dark moments and in return he loved me recklessly. He showed me love like I’ve never known. He became my friend, husband and business partner and we’ve been together for eighteen. I’m so glad that I followed my heart and helped him when everyone else abandoned him. That by far is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I’m not a good judge of character but I have learnt that not everyone behind a prison wall is evil. Some of them are better and more humane than most people walking freely.
