My uncle ate his shit because his wife was too wicked to feed him

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“My uncle was an averagely successful man in his prime; he owned a very modest home, had a car and lived in a small city where he ran a small business.

 

Very many years ago, my uncle’s side of the family started suffering a lot of misfortune in their affairs. With all the bad luck, they visited the oracle which told them that in the old days, their ancestor had sold off someone from their kindred as a slave. The gods were angry and were punishing the family. To appease the gods of the sacrilege their ancestor had committed so that their bad fortunes can be turned around, they had to marry a wife who would bear a child to replace the one that had been sold. It fell on my uncle to marry a new wife, which he did, because his only brother was too poor to do so.

 

Before this incident, my uncle’s wife had always been very cantankerous; everyone knew her to be harsh, selfish, lazy, and she just didn’t care for much more than herself. So when this issue came up, everyone knew her reaction would be bad.

 

Years, they all lived together. My uncle, a Christian, was unhappy with his ‘second wife’ situation but he put up with it because of the promise of lifting the family’s long run with bad luck. However, over the years, he got sick, lost his small fortune and was forced to relocate back to the village.

 

Even though he was now living in the village, his wife refused to move with him, staying back in the city. When my uncle’s condition worsened and he became bedridden, the family asked her to come home and take care of him. She was forced to after my uncle sold their house to raise money to pay his bills. He also abjured the second wife so he could make amends with the church and his faith. With part of the sales proceeds from his house, he built a modest home for the second wife and took care of her children as best as he could.

 

The first wife, my aunt, now living in the village, became even more cantankerous than before. She barely fed him and when the other wife, who lived beside them, tried to, she’d chase her away, saying that the more he ate, the more he shit and she couldn’t keep cleaning large shit.       

 

The most shocking thing of all was when my father visited one day and met my uncle eating his own shit. Yes, he was eating his own shit. The poor old bedridden man had not been fed in a long time and when he could bear the hunger no longer, he started scooping the shit off his bed, which had not been cleaned, into his mouth. My father was shocked and he started crying – he fed him, cleaned him and spent some time before leaving. My uncle’s wife felt no remorse. Not long after, my uncle died.

 

Right before our eyes, my aunt’s turn came. She got older and got struck by the strangest sickness; her body was rotting. She smelt so bad and her kids would not care for her; they all abandoned her. When the married daughters came around, they would not come inside the room because she disgusted them and the place stank. It was only her son, a poor bachelor, who struggled to take care of her.

 

In those days, my aunt’s character changed and she became nicer. You could see her regrets plastered on her face and though many of us felt her suffering was the consequence of her past actions, we still could not help but feel so bad for what she was going through and how it all came to turn out.

 

Her story is one that stays with me still, for I saw closely how our actions can have consequences. I’m sure she never thought that one day, she would be unable to do things for herself and would need help, or that people she loved would abandon her just like she abandoned her husband.

 

Till today though, there are times when it’s hard to wrap my head around what happened - refusing to feed him just so he wouldn’t shit? Then he shits and you won’t clean it? Then he has to eat that same shit? It still marvels me how wicked a person can be.”