26/05/2026
𝑨 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅!😭😢😢
In my office, I receive more than 1,000 letters and emails every month.
All these letters and emails pass through my hands.
I stay awake almost all nights reading and responding.
After my promotion,
I had to move into a new office and take over some special duties in addition to my scope of work.
In the new office, I saw letters that were dumped somewhere. No one had touched or opened the letters nor read them
I wondered how the letters got there.
The envelopes used were very dusty. About nineteen letters from the same person.
They had the same name.
Same phone number.
Same address.
Same request.
And same handwriting.
When our cleaner wanted to dispose of them, I stopped him and requested him to bring them to me.
I opened and read one. It was a letter written to the accounts and finance department of our company by a labourer in November 2019.
The letter was a request.
The worker was humbly requesting the head of accounts department to pay hi his salary, that he was critically sick and needed the money for urgent treatment. In the letter, he stated that he had hepatitis which affected his liver.
I read the second letter. It was the same request. Looking at the letter, one would know that it was written in tears. The drops of tears were still visible on it since the letter was inserted in an envelope.
I read the third letter and saw the same thing.
I read the fourth letter. It was still the same request.
He had been writing and sending in letters since November 2019 and the last letter was written on 10 August 2020, in which the writer stated that the accounts department should have mercy on him and his family and unblock his line and answer his calls.
It was confusing.
Who blocks people's lines here?
I decided to call.
I used my phone and dialed the number on one of the letters, which was the last letter written on 10 August 2020.
It rang.
No one picked.
I redialed it.
It rang again.
Someone picked.
I spoke first.
“Hello,” I said, “good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon.” a female voice answered. It was the voice of a middle aged woman.
I told her my name and where I was calling from.
She kept quiet.
I told her that I was calling to speak with the person who bears the name on the letters.
She started sobbing over the phone.
“He is lying down here,” she cried.
“Who?” I asked to reaffirm.
“The person you want to speak with.”
“Can I speak with him, please?”
“He can't talk anymore. He is only breathing. He can't move. He doesn't even know that someone is sitting beside him. I am his wife. We have been writing letters and calling but you people said we should not disturb you anymore. Our lines were blocked. His money was withheld. We sent people to you people's office but they came back with nothing.” She cried, “We are just waiting for him to go and rest.”
I couldn't say a word.
I was just dropping tears because of the way she spoke.
She continued,
“He is dying day by day. The person receiving our calls and letters threatened us not to write or call again. My husband has been a worker in your company for more than seven years. He laboured there. He worked as if the work was his life. He didn't miss any day even when he was sick. But see how he has been abandoned. What has he done to deserve this treatment? God sees everything. We have been going around to ask for money but no one wants to help. We have to leave town and return to the village. No money to treat him. No money to eat. No money to pay rent. I spent my business money and nothing...” She sobbed.
I guess there was an error somewhere.
Maybe something I am not aware of. The company I work for is not known for this narrative.
I asked her their village and home address.
She told me.
I went to the village.
It is a village between Changoima and Thambani. I lost my way several times before getting to their house.
I saw the man.
He was lying down on a mat in front of their house. The wife was sitting next to him on the mat. She was chasing flies around him. She just finished cleaning him up in front of their house.
He was looking dried and tired.
No emotion.
No movement.
He couldn't talk.
He couldn't hear.
His eyes were just open, eye balls merely rotating.
He was s a middle aged man.
In his early fifties.
The sickness has taken the greater part of him and has left him dropping tears bit by bit which his wife constantly cleaned.
I guess he noticed that a stranger was around.
I didn't know him when he was working with us.
I did not think it was only the sickness his wife told me that brought him down to this state. What I saw was more than liver disease.
His wife in tears spoke to me saying;
“Even if he dies today, I am already comforted. He needs to go and rest. He has suffered a lot. Maybe, I will join him later. I have nothing else. I just came to this world to bury people I love.”
I left there with tears and a heavy heart.
On getting home, I sent foodstuffs and beverages from my house to them because I had no money.
As I got to work next day, I told my boss about the man.
I also met the head of accounts department concerning the sick man. To my dismay, the head of accounts department had been approving the man's salary every month but the accountant in charge of payment was not sending the money to him since he noticed he was not coming to ask for it. The accountant was embezzling the money. Sadly, the accountant was also close to the man, so the letters and calls were going directly to him. The sick man and his wife trusted him and they were using him as a middle man to reach the head of accounts on their behalf. My pain arose more when I found out they were even from the same community.
He had been signing and collecting the man's money for about two years without delivering the money to the sick man.
He was arrested and charged.
He paid off the money in a day from his life savings.
He was then suspended.
But I had made an enemy.
An enemy that didn't know that he was s an enemy of himself.
Two of our directors visited the sick man and his wife. They arranged for him to be taken to the hospital for better treatment. He was admitted to hospital last weekend.
This morning.
I received a call.
It was the man's wife.
Her voice choked on the phone.
She was sobbing.
Bitterly.
She then spoke,
“Thank you so much. Thank you so much for fighting for my husband. Thank you so much for your efforts. At least I heard his voice again. He smiled at me. Now that I am speaking with you sir, he is gone to be with the Lord. God bless you, sir.”
On whose salary/ progress are you sitting?
Whose character are you assassinating because you're envious of him/her?
This speaks volumes about who we are, as individuals, as a nation. The change needed must begin with an individual.
