These words seemed wise to me because life was gradually gravitating towards trusting yourself, and your parents. It was his way of cautioning me against friends who could have bad intentions for me, but mask it with so many other emotions asides the true one they feel.
I am carefree when it comes to loving people. I love fully in whatever ship I am, be it friendship, family-ship or even a romantic relationship. I don’t know how to give half or fake love. It’s either I love or I don’t. This man was one of those I loved with all of me.
Just the way I loved my grandpa, I loved this man because he exuded the traits similar to my grandpa’s that made me love him so much, and I wanted so much to be like him when I finally become an adult.
He had this soft-spokenness that commanded respect, and would calm the raving storm, and me being the always-angry little girl, I wanted to have that soft spoken feature. He would travel to Lagos and return to the village with many goodies for me and my sister, and those goodies were the next best thing after dinner. It was indeed blissful years, or so I thought.
I looked up to this man because of his peace-making spirit. That skill in particular was the first thing I loved about my grandpa, so it felt surreal that I could find someone else with that same trait. It was so easy for me to fall in love with this elderly man. I took him as a mentor to navigate life.
I would go home, sit with him under the tree and talk about the many things about my life. I mentioned so many things to him that it didn’t feel like I was divulging too many information. I felt so good to at least have an elderly man apart from my dad who could hold my hand through the roughness of this life and teach me how to navigate it without losing myself. It was such a good time, or so I think.
Whenever I was ill, this man was always the first person my dad would call, just because he was always available, but little did we know.
A few years later, we came to make a discovery that changed the trajectory of our relationship with him and his kids that I’ve held in high esteem forever and ever.
We came to find that this man wasn’t the angel we thought him to be, rather, he was the devil incarnate. We realized that he wasn’t the peace maker that we all thought he was, rather, he was the peace spoiler. We discovered that the similarity I thought he had with my grandpa was a façade carefully hiding the real feelings of hatred he had encrypted in his heart.
I came to realize that the supposed encouraging phrase of “love all, but trust none” was referring to him because in all of our findings, we realized that he was the one undeserving of anyone’s love or trust, and I wish I had found this out earlier.
It was heartbreaking to see the once “greatest man after my grandpa” become someone I would recommend everyone to run away from.
Now, instead of having a role model that I look up to, I build myself, and live life on my own terms. I love people, and I trust people because that seems to be a trait I can’t change about me.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for the month of March. You can find the details here
