Her Side of the Story
There are stories the world never hears, quiet stories that live inside the heart, woven from longing, fear, hope, and decisions no one else fully understands. The day she walked down the aisle, most people saw only her smile, the bouquet in her hands, the glow on her face. But beneath the veil, beneath the lace and the soft shimmer of the morning light, there was a story much older than that moment.
This is hers.
On the evening before her wedding, Hawesidi sat alone on the veranda of her mother’s house. The air was heavy with the scent of mbirimbi and the distant sound of waves crashing against the rocks in the quiet rhythm she had grown up with.
She held a small wooden box on her lap. Inside were letters, old ones, written when love was young, when dreams were unfiltered. There were scribbles from days when she and the man she once wanted to marry shared hopes recklessly, the way people do when the world feels simple, and the future looks wide.
She opened the letter on top.
The handwriting was familiar, gentle, neat, shaped by someone who thought deeply before putting pen to paper. It was the letter he wrote the day they decided they would name their firstborn child.
She traced the words with her fingertips.
Her heart tightened.
Her mother walked out quietly and placed a soft hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to forget him,” she said.
“But you have to choose the path that gives you peace.”
And peace… peace was all she ever wanted.
But the truth was, she once wanted him more than peace. She had pictured her life with him in colours brighter than morning light. She had imagined waking beside him, raising children, building a life brick by brick.
She had even imagined her wedding, only he wasn’t the groom she would meet at the altar the next morning.
Why, then, did she choose another man?
The answer was not simple. It was made of many small truths, some painful, some necessary.
She still remembers the night she made the hardest decision of her life.
It was raining softly, the kind of rain that sounds like whispered prayers. They had met beneath the mango tree where they often talked. He looked tired, overwhelmed by the uncertainties in his life. She looked hopeful, craving a reassurance he didn’t yet know how to give.
She had asked him, gently:
“Are you ready for marriage?”
He had paused—a long, quiet pause, the kind that carries more meaning than words.
“I want to marry you one day,” he said softly.
“But not now. I’m not ready yet.”
Though he meant it sincerely, something inside her shifted.
For months afterwards, she held onto hope. She waited. She encouraged him. She tried to ignore the fear growing inside her, that their dreams were not walking at the same pace.
She wanted stability. She wanted to build. She wanted assurance that the man she loved would choose her with certainty.
But he was wrestling with his own journey, trying to gather his life, his career, his identity. He needed time.
And she… she needed direction.
They loved each other. That was real. But sometimes two real loves are separated by different seasons of readiness.
She cried many nights silently, wondering if love alone was enough.
The day she finally walked away, the air felt unusually still. She had brought herself to accept something heartbreaking:
You can love someone deeply, yet recognise that the timing is breaking you.
She didn’t leave because she stopped loving him.
She left because waiting for him was slowly turning her into someone full of doubt.
Her friends told her she was too emotional.
Her relatives told her that mongo unakira wa mwana.
Her heart told her she couldn’t continue building dreams alone.
And he, he never begged her to stay.
Not because he didn’t love her, but because he respected her too much to make promises he wasn’t ready to fulfil.
She remembered his last words to her during their breakup:
“I want you to find peace… even if it’s not with me.”
It broke both of them.
But something in those words softened her heartbreak. It showed her love in its purest form, unselfish, dignified.
She walked away with tears she never showed the world.
Months later, life introduced her to someone new, not a replacement, not a miracle, simply a man aligned with her season. His name was Baraka.
He was steady in ways she had once prayed for.
He was patient in ways she didn’t expect.
He was ready for marriage in a way her heart could feel.
He met her at a time when she was learning how to rebuild her sense of worth. He asked her about her dreams, her fears, her ambitions. And when she told him she wanted a home and a partnership, he didn’t shrink from the responsibility.
Still, she didn’t love him the way she had loved the first man, not immediately. Her love for Baraka grew slowly, like a seed nurtured with intention rather than flames burning instantly.
She sometimes wondered if it was fair.
But Baraka understood.
He knew she carried memories of another.
He didn’t demand her past; he simply promised her a future.
And little by little, she began to breathe easier.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment. There was no lightning bolt, no instant clarity, just a quiet realisation one morning while she was washing dishes as sunlight streamed through the window.
She realised she felt safe.
Not butterflies.
Not infatuation.
Not fireworks.
Safety.
The kind of safety that brings calm to the soul.
Baraka treated her with gentleness.
He was consistent.
He showed up.
Her heart wasn’t racing toward him; it was walking steadily, peacefully.
And peace, she remembered, was all she ever wanted.
Still, she had a lingering ache, the memory of the man she once dreamed of building a life with. She wondered if she was betraying her past. She wondered if she had rushed. She wondered if the first man ever realised how much she had wanted him.
Then something happened.
One evening, as they spoke for the last time before her wedding, he told her:
“Get married. Let your heart be happy. Let mine be free.”
Those words shook her.
They told her everything she needed to know.
He loved her enough to let her go.
She loved him enough to let him remain a beautiful memory.
And with that, her heart found closure.
When the day finally came, she wore her dress with hands that trembled slightly. People saw the glow in her eyes, but none saw the quiet storm brewing inside.
As she stood at the church entrance, waiting for the music to begin, her heart stretched between past and present.
Part of her whispered:
“He should have been here beside me… if things had gone differently.”
Another part whispered:
“You are choosing peace. You are choosing your life.”
When she stepped forward, her eyes caught a familiar figure in the crowd, him.
The ex.
The man she once wanted with all her heart.
Her breath paused.
She hadn’t expected him to attend.
Her heart softened and broke and healed all in one moment.
She could see from the way he looked at the ground that he was hurting quietly. She wished she could reach out, hold his hand, and tell him she had once pictured the same aisle with him.
But life had led them here, to this crossroads of acceptance.
She walked past him with dignity, not ignoring him, but carrying the memory of what they were in a respectful silence.
She remembered a thought that passed through her mind in that moment:
“If things had been different… maybe this would have been our day.”
But things were not different.
And life had chosen another path for both of them.
Though she never said it aloud, this is what her heart wished he knew:
She wanted to marry him once, more deeply than he could ever imagine.
She waited for him longer than she admitted.
She believed in him even when he didn’t believe in himself.
She walked away not because she stopped loving him, but because she was breaking from the uncertainty.
She wanted him to know:
Love brewed in heaven
If he had been ready, she would have been his.
Completely.
Easily.
Joyfully.
She wanted him to know:
She didn’t replace him.
Life simply filled the space he could not hold.
And she wanted him to know:
A part of her would always cherish what they had.
Not to rekindle it.
Not to regret.
Just to honour the beauty of the love brewed in heaven that once visited her life.
Days after the wedding, when she finally breathed fully again, she realised she was not living a life stolen from someone else. She was building a future aligned with her heart’s needs.
She had chosen a partner who could meet her in the present, not someone she had to wait for, not someone whose love was full of “one day,” but someone who loved her now.
She didn’t erase her past.
She carried it gently, the way people carry old photographs, precious, but not consuming.
Sometimes she thought of her ex with warmth, hoping he found the love he deserved, hoping he healed from the pain of witnessing her walk away into another man’s future.
She hoped he understood:
She didn’t choose another man over him.
She chose certainty over waiting.
Peace over fear.
A future that was ready over one that was still under construction.
She hoped that someday, when love found him again, he would feel the same peace she felt that night after her wedding.
Love taught her that timing matters.
That readiness matters.
That sometimes the right person arrives at the wrong moment.
That letting go can be a form of love.
And that two people can love each other deeply yet still part ways gracefully.
Her story wasn’t a tale of betrayal.
It was a tale of seasons.
A tale of two hearts growing at different speeds.
A tale of love that was real, but not sustainable.
A tale of letting go with dignity.
Because love brewed in heaven isn’t always meant to last a lifetime,
Sometimes it is meant to shape a heart, teach a lesson, or open a path to something better.
Years may pass, but she will remember him with respect. She will remember the laughter, the tenderness, the dreams they once shared. She will remember that there was a time she wanted nothing more than to be his wife.
She believes, quietly, sincerely, that in another lifetime, perhaps their stories might have aligned.
But in this life, she chose the man who arrived when she needed stability, the man whose love grounded her, the man whose presence felt like calm.
Still, deep inside her heart lies a gentle truth:
He was her almost.
Her once-in-a-lifetime memory.
Her lesson in love.
And that, too,
is a kind of love brewed in heaven.