‘Babe, can you focus on the road?’

Hi David. I don’t feel like chatting right now. I just want to brief you on something that happened recently. There used to be a guy working in my husband’s office. He became more like a family friend to us. He died in June, 2025 and we attended his funeral a few weeks ago. I love to drive and go fast but I couldn’t bring myself to drive to his funeral. My husband planned to leave early because his name was on the program to read a tribute on behalf of their team at work. Long story made short, he came home to pick me up. In the backseat was his personal assistant. Another amiable, smart young lady who had also become a family friend to us. She’s the one he uses often to surprise me with gifts and dinner dates on our wedding anniversaries or my birthday. I’ve used her services many times to plan birthday surprise parties for my husband at work and home.

On our way to Kumasi, we were discussing every subject on the table, politics, life, death, etc. My husband is the type that even if he’s exhausted behind the steering wheel, he would force himself not to fall asleep. He started to sleep and wasn’t focused on the road. He made a swift miss to change a lane and his personal assistant at the back shouted, ‘BABE, can you focus on the road?’ Dave, the first name I screamed when that happened was ‘Jesus’, hers was ‘babe’. Suddenly, my husband who was supposed to be heavy-eyed was wide awake and nonchalantly, staring at his assistant through the rearview mirror. In the 11 years that I have known my husband, I have never seen him on silent mode. We all sat in awkward silence till we got to Kumasi and back.

I have still not brought the subject up for discussion at home. It’s been five weeks now.

Image Credit: Shukhrat Umarov