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Nora sat in the room with her legs crossed on the rug, surrounded by boxes which were labelled "Grandad's stuff". She has been here for hours, randomly going through some old newspapers and magazines, picture albums and keepsakes her grand father had tucked away over many years. Every item was like an insight for her into his world. This was a man she really adored, but it also felt like she didn't really know him that well. Her grandfather, Late Mr. Ibekwe, was known to be a man of many contradictions. On the outside he appeared to be this kind of tough person, but on the inside him was this tenderness that he tried to cover up. The way he raised Nora was more of guidance and not the control. By 6am he is up drinking his tea, and by 5pm he takes a walk alone as he uses the opportunity to think and clear his head a little bit. He really valued silence and believed wisdom is often birthed as a result of it. As he would always tell Nora, "Words are easy, my dear. But as for silence... silence always tells the truth. When he passed on two weeks ago at age ninety-nine, Nora initially believed that she was not going to cry. After all he died at quiet a ripe good old age. But somehow she began to experience grief in some sort of strange ways. First of all, she felt this lump in her throat when she set eyes on her Grandad's slippers by the door. The next was an ache in her chest when she heard a neighbor greeting someone with the same manner and intonation her Grandad normally greets other people. She was having a hard time accepting his passing. She had never really thought about a day like this coming or how to deal with it should it arrive. It was like she could still feel him around. As if he was going to walk through the front door anytime soon. While Nora was digging through some old hard covers, she discovered a small unsealed envelope in-between between the pages if a history book. It wrote boldly, "Nora", at the front across the front. She really didn't expect to see this.
For the next few minutes she just kept staring at the envelope, contemplating whether to open it or not. What could possibly be the content of that letter her Grandad wrote to her before he passed on? She eventually mustered up some courage and opened the envelope, unfolded the paper inside and began to read. "My dear Nora, if you are reading this, it means I am gone. And there are things I must tell you that I never had the courage to say while alive." At this point her hands were slightly shaking. But she continued to read. "You grew up believing I was always strong, that I stood tall without fear. That is not true, my dear. To be honest, for most of my life, I carried a secret—a choice I made when I was young that has haunted me every day since. You deserve to know, because part of who you are is tied to it." For someone she saw as her hero and role model, it came as a surprise to her as she read these words from him. The letter continued. "Before I met your grandmother, before I settled in this town, I had another family. A wife. A son. Circumstances—choices—tore us apart. I left them, Nora. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. But a man never outruns the weight of what he abandons. That boy, your uncle, grew up without me. I never saw him again." Nora had her mouth parted open with the other hand to covering it. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Another family? An uncle she never knew? This was a lot for her to take in. "You are not to blame for the silence I chose. But you should know that somewhere in this world, you may have family you have never met. I do not ask you to forgive me—perhaps no one should—but I do ask you to live with more courage than I did. Do not run from truth, no matter how heavy it feels." She put the letter down for some seconds trying to process what she had just read. Then raised it back up and read the final lines: "I loved you with all the love I had left. If I failed others, I pray I did not fail you. Be braver than me, Nora. That will be my redemption." Nora folded the letter slowly. Her grandfather’s last words weren’t just confessions—they were instructions. The silence he had carried all his life had finally spoken. When her mother arrived an hour later, Nora was still sitting on the rug, the envelope in her lap. “Nora?” her mother called. “You’ve been here all day. Did you find anything worth keeping?” Nora looked up quickly. For a moment she considered hiding the letter, keeping it back in the hardcover book she had discovered it. But then she remembered his words, "Be braver than me." “I… I found a letter from Granddad,” she said softly. Her mother looked at her inquisitively. “A letter? To you?” Nora nodded, extending the paper to her mom. Her mother sat beside her on the rug, and she unfolded the note. She took one more look at Nora and then the letter as she began to read. As her mother’s eyes moved across the page, Nora studied her face. After reading her mom finished reading the letter, she finally spoke, “I always wondered why he was so protective. Why sometimes he’d just… be staring at nothing especially when families were around. Now I know. It makes sense now” “What do we do?” Nora whispered. Her mother folded the letter carefully. “We don’t run from it. He’s right. If there’s another family, we find them. We owe it to him—to ourselves—to know the truth.” Nora exhaled slowly. For the first time since his death, she felt as though she was stepping not away from her grandfather’s memory, but deeper into it. That night, Nora placed the letter back into its envelope and set it beside the clock. She stood in front of it and whispered, “I’ll be braver, Granddad. I promise.” She cut the lights out and went to bed.
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