Life is not fair; But God is JUST! -By Swandy Banta

‘Because I’d rater feel pain than nothing at all’
To me, this sentence rings true;
In this world full of hate,
I’d rather be you.

Right now anyone elses’ life,
Seems a whole lot better.
They all seem so nice and warm;
Like a comfortable sweater.

I have hit a rough patch;
On this road we call life.
It has lots of pot holes;
They cause so much strife.

Parents divorced,
Moved away from home;
I feel so depressed,
I feel so alone.

I deal with my past,
On a day-to-day basis;
Right now it’s routine,
With no room for spaces.

School, work,
And anxiety,
Why in the world,
Would you want to be me?

Anger and outrage,
Long to break out;
They’ve been trapped inside,
And I just want to shout!

Scream at the top of my lungs,
Until I run out of air.
As I ponder the thought,
Why is life so unfair?
–Josephine Adrian

Sometime in 1984, 18 year old Thomas Hayenesworth was on his way to buy some groceries for his mom when he was arrested by the police. He was accused of serially raping women and was later identified by five women as fitting the description of the man who they believed had attacked and raped them.

The young Thomas consistently insisted on his innocence in all five trials but did not receive any mercy from the jury who convicted him in all but one of the trials.

The young Thomas was advised severally by his lawyer and other well meaning individuals to enter into a plea bargain by admitting he committed the crimes, but he consistently refused to admit to a crime he knew he did not commit.

Days turned to weeks, then months, then years.

At the time of the crime there were no forensic facilities to find possible DNA matches for the samples of the attacker collected from the victim. They only identified the blood group of the attacker which was O+ and a match with that of Thomas.

After 27 years in prison, it was finally established through DNA testing that indeed Thomas was not the attacker. Prison officials also testified that through the years Thomas exhibited exemplary behavior in prison while insisting that he was innocent of the crime.

Thomas was released on his 46th birthday.

Thomas got to meet with Janice Burke, one of the ladies who had wrongfully identified him as her attacker 27 years earlier and she asked for his forgiveness. He hugged her and told her he bore no grudge against her. Thomas said, “What happened, happened; I can’t erase that. I have to just move on with my life”.

For me I find it really difficult to understand how someone could have suffered confinement for 27 years over a crime he didn’t commit and still be of good behavior and not yield to a bad temper or even suicide.

Taking a closer look I realize that while we may think that Thomas lost 27 years of his life, I think he only lived a different life from the one he had planned.

In prison he still read, took courses and equipped himself for the outside world while he hoped for freedom.

When he was finally released and the Attorney general at the time, Attorney Cuccinelli offered to do anything possible to get his life back, he asked for a job. He was then offered a job in the Attorney general’s office.

It’s a tough call when life throws unexpected situations at us and even more painful when we did not do a thing to deserve it. Imagine those who got caught up in the Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust or those who were thrown out of their homes when hurricane Katrina struck or even those who have been displaced from their homes in North East, Middle Belt and parts of Southern Kaduna in Nigeria as a result of Boko Haram insurgency, Herdsmen attacks and communal clashes.

Life can and sometimes will throw situations we did not deserve at us. When it happens it’s not going to matter what unfair situation was thrown at us as but our reaction to what happened to us.

Becoming bitter over unfair situations is akin to feeding the monster chasing you.

What has happened is bad enough. Being malicious and seeking revenge or resorting to other vices is feeding the negative and denying the positive of the opportunity to make some lemonade out of the lemons that have been thrown at you.

Of what use would it have been for Thomas if he had spent his years in prison hating and planning a revenge for his wrongful incarceration? He may have even ended up unhealthy and probably died if grief.

I remember a friend of mine Ben. He was job hunting in Abuja some years ago.he had gone to one of the plazas to drop his application for a job at one of the offices where his uncle had made contacts for him. Just as he made his way towards the exit of the plaza, a sales boy ran out of one of the shops and accosted him, claiming he had been in their shop the previous day, bought some goods and paid with fake dollars.

Ben was whisked to the police station where he was locked up for over a week. To cut the long story short, his family had to raise money and pay for goods Been had no idea about. Ben later told how forgiving that sales boy was one of the toughest decisions he ever made.

Good thing Ben chose to forgive and move on because he later got the job he applied for and not long afterwards moved on to a lucrative bank job. Today he runs his own oil company. He chose to rise above the painful allegation, forgive, forget and bury the ugly incident and then moved on with his life.

Sometimes what makes it more difficult to let go of situations like these is when the offender is not even sorry.

Like in the case of Thomas Hayenesworth, the real serial rapist was a guy who lived in the same neighborhood with him called Lyon Davies.

Thomas and Davies had such striking resemblance that it was no surprise that the ladies mistook him for their offender. Even when Davies got convicted later for other crimes and met Thomas in prison, he admitted he was responsible for the crimes attributed to Thomas as but refused to turn himself in and pave way for Thomas’ freedom.

This was really unfair. Good thing after the unfair 27 years in prison, the general assembly passed a bill for the payment of 1 million dollars in lump sum, two different types of annuities and tuition at a community college for Thomas.

For your own sake and for the sake of your sanity, I encourage you to focus on salvaging what is left of your life. Let go and let God. Sometimes the best thing to do in these kinds of disturbing situations is to struggle for your freedom and walk away from it all.

Be content with the opportunity to start on a fresh page of life rather than juggling things further. Trust me, not all battles are worth fighting. Like Thomas and like my friend Been they paid the price and walked away, leaving their offenders in the hands of posterity.

So Why is life Unfair?
We give and never receive,
We grab and never appreciate,
My concern was so much about life’s glory than burdens,

And while life is unfair,
We must forgive
To be sane,
Forget to understand the pain
Because in all
Life is unfair
But GOD IS JUST!

Swandy Banta is blue blooded, ask her what that means and she gladly tells you, she’s been through the tunnel of pain and she found illuminating light. She writes and coaches on the difficult subject of pain. Whether it’s national pain, community pain or the pain of loss and the hurts of life that makes us all ask why—she brings new perspectives. Swandy can be reached on swandy.banta@gmail.com