In this life, we really can’t tell what people are going through by just looking at them or seeing them physically. The clothes we are putting on certainly cover so many things that are not known to us. Some are going through depression, some people’s own is the loss of loved ones, and to some people, theirs is life’s predicament. Life is certainly not a bed of roses.
About two days ago, when returning from work, I boarded a vehicle heading home. The journey was about an hour plus. So, I was the first person to enter the vehicle, and after about five minutes of driving, I realised that no other person had entered the vehicle, and I was worried for the driver because it is not easy for him to just go like that without carrying passengers, especially with the price of fuel having skyrocketed.
Not long after, he told me about the fact that his own vehicle had developed a fault and was in the mechanic’s workshop. He was just using this one because he had borrowed it from someone else so that he could make a living for a while. He further said he would need about one million naira to fix his car. One of his daughters is in a school of nursing, and he had just spoken to the head teacher to give him time so that he could look for the school fees, explaining that his car had developed a fault. He said he had just paid the school fees of his other daughter about two weeks ago before the car had issues. I felt for him, and he said he needed to send money to his daughter for feeding too.
So, we continued with our journey. After about ten minutes, a passenger flagged down the vehicle. Originally, where the person was going was ₦1,200, but the passenger said he only had ₦800. The driver didn’t want to carry the passenger, as I saw the tears in the driver’s eyes. But he didn’t have an option, so he just allowed the passenger to enter.
He said something like, “May God help me. What am I going to do like this?”
Not long after that, he was able to pack passengers to the brim of the vehicle, and I saw how he just grinned and said, “I just helped that man o! I didn’t even know that it would happen like this.”
So, at times when I look at life, I can’t help but wonder why some people behave the way they do. Life happens to everyone, and he also explained that he was once an orphan. He was the one who enrolled himself in carpentry work before he eventually found his way to school.