A father’s cheating ways saved his children’s lives

When my cousins were young, their father cheated on their mother with this much older, successful woman. This affair went on for years before my aunt found out and every effort to stop them didn’t work. Eventually, my aunt resigned herself to having another woman occupy her husband’s heart and cause her misery.

When my aunt went into labour for her fifth and last child, my uncle was away with his mistress. My aunt was having a difficult labour and no one could find my uncle. By the time he got to the hospital, my aunt was dead. My mum says she remembers him crying hysterically and not one single person offering any words of comfort because they all knew that he’d been with his mistress.

 
Not long after, my uncle married his mistress and moved into her home with his children because she was wealthier. A few years later, my uncle died, leaving behind his new wife and the children he’d had with my aunt.

His new marriage did not give him any new children. So now, my uncle’s new wife was stuck with children who were not related to her by blood. My uncle’s family did not have any money so could not take his children in; my late aunt’s family were poor too so could not offer much help either.

At the burial of my uncle, his older children wept bitterly, worried about their future. Their step mother told them not to worry, that since she’d married their father, she was will willing to take care of them as best as she could. She kept her word and spent her money raising them - two are medical doctors, one is a pharmacist, one studied engineering and the other is running her own business…after she graduated with a law degree.

My mum said it was the strangest twist of fate she had ever seen and anytime she looked at them, she could not help but think that this was one of the best examples of something positive coming out of something negative. My cousins are very much aware of how weirdly lucky they got considering that the woman who had ruined their mother’s marriage had turned around to become their salvation.