When the old postman knocked on Clara's door, she almost didn't answer.

No one wrote letters anymore.

With trembling hands, she accepted the faded envelope. Her name was written in familiar handwriting—the kind she hadn't seen in twelve years.

It was from her father.

The same father who had walked away when she was ten. The same man she had spent years pretending she no longer needed.

Her fingers shook as she unfolded the paper.

"My dearest Clara,"

"If this letter has reached you, it means I never found the courage to say these words in person."

Tears blurred the ink before she could continue.

He wrote about every birthday he had secretly remembered, every school graduation he had watched from a distance, every Christmas he spent holding the tiny photograph of her that never left his wallet.

He confessed that shame had chained him. Every year he wanted to return, but the longer he stayed away, the more impossible it felt.

"I thought you deserved a father without broken promises. Instead, I became the man who broke the biggest promise of all."

Clara pressed the letter against her chest and cried for the little girl who had spent years waiting by the window.

At the bottom of the page was one final sentence.

"If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, visit the old oak tree where we used to read stories together."

She didn't hesitate.

The next morning, she drove to the small hill overlooking the town. The oak tree was still there, older and stronger than she remembered.

Beneath it sat a simple wooden bench.

But her father wasn't there.

Instead, an elderly woman approached quietly.

"You must be Clara," she said gently.

Clara nodded.

"I'm your father's nurse. He passed away three weeks ago."

The words stole the air from her lungs.

"He asked me to mail the letter only after he was gone," the woman whispered. "He said he wasn't asking for another chance. He only wanted you to know that not a single day passed without loving you."

Clara sank onto the bench, clutching the letter as tears rolled freely down her face.

The wind rustled through the branches above, carrying memories of bedtime stories, laughter, and a childhood that had ended too soon.

For years, she had believed she carried the weight of being forgotten.

Now she realized something even heavier had existed all along—a father carrying the burden of regret.

She looked toward the sky and smiled through her tears.

"I forgive you, Dad."

The breeze wrapped around her like an embrace she had waited a lifetime to feel.

Sometimes love arrives too late to change the past.

But it can still heal the heart that's been carrying yesterday's pain.

And sometimes... the last letter becomes the first page of forgiveness.

Brand new fifty naira notes, tear leather.

This was almost 18years back.

It was on a Saturday morning when we were cooking Jeloff rice. My mother called me from the backyard into the kitchen. She asked me to buy her onions so she could use it to prepare joloff rice before daddy goes out.

While I was searching for my slippers she shouted from the kitchen.

"Ovbi, Caleb please I beg you run. Food will soon dorn. Run."

I was running like the philistines just as I was commanded, until I sighted the wallet from a distance. I quickly stopped running and started strolling towards the wallet.

When I got to the wallet I stopped. I sighted a bunch of brand new fifty naira notes well arranged. There was no I.D card inside.

People of God these notes where packaged. The amount of money I saw in the wallet made me forget where my mother had sent me to.

I picked the wallet, opened my trouser and tucked the wallet inside my small boxer.

That is how money that was not my own made me change road.

Instead of going to buy onions, I started running to the river. I ran like someone who was being chased by **** spirits. I took sharp conners like a racing car, jumped bushes, crossed rivers, until I finally decided to run into an uncompleted building for proper hiding.

I was seriously panting and sweating.

I pulled out the wallet to count the money, when a boy who had dried and liquid catarrh in his nose walked in. He kept staring at me and the wallet.

This boy was bigger than me. Mare looking at him, I knew he was going to be a future armed robber. His lips were black and his eyes red.

"Na your own?"

I wanted to node my head. But then several thoughts came flying into my head.

What if the boy had seen me pick the money and decided to chase me into the building. If I node my head, he could just slap me.

What if it was his father's wallet and he had just recognised it.

I simply shook my head.

"No. It is not my own."

"Na your papa own?"

"No."

"Who own?"

I wanted to say my Uncle. But I thought twice. Then I decided to confess.

"I saw it on the floor."

The boy cleaned his hands on his trousers and stretched his hands towards me.

I handed him the wallet like a gentle man. He pulled out the money and handed me the empty wallet to hold. He spat on his fingers thrice and began to count the money like a banker.

Then he pulled out some notes and handed me.

"Take your share."

I didn't know when I told him "Thank you sir."

The guy thought he cheated me. He didn't know he had done me a big favour. The problem was not carrying the money home, my Major problem was how to hide and spend such a huge amount of money without my mother catching me and using me for pepper soup.

I quickly got up and ran off to buy my onions.

The journey home suddenly became far. While running, I kept asking myself.

"But Caleb come o, when and how did you run all the way to this place? Inside bush for that matter."

Well, I successfully got back home 4hours later with the onions. Food had already dorn. My mother had even washed plates and was using tooth pick to remove meat from her teeth.

Someone I told good morning in the morning, I ended up telling her "goorevening ma."

On top onions of 50naira.

That woman beat me till an extent I lost appetite for food and money for 3days.

Itis well.

A missing wallet is stressful.

But a missing ₦25,000 in a room full of people?

That's where things get interesting.

Because the real mystery isn't who took it.

It's what everyone does when suspicion enters the room.

What's the first thing suspicion changes: trust, friendships, or the truth itself?

Those people who are constantly suffering from constipation due to excessive eating, should always remember that they are stealing from those suffering from perpetual starvation.

Those who have stored food that could last them more than a ten thousand days, should remember that they are robbing those who have nothing to eat today.

Those who have more money than they would ever need in a thousand lifetime, and refuse to share with those who have no Kobo to meet their current basic needs, are civil robbers, who are not too different from arm robbers.

We need to stop preaching salvation to a starving man. We need to stop telling poor sinners that they will end up in Hell - they are already living in hell! We all need to start preaching to the poor from our pockets and wallets.

Civil Robbers are arm rubbers who steal using a pen as a weapon instead of a gun.

Civil robbers are arm robbers who use the the holy book as a weapon to swindle gullible followers of their hard earned money.

Civil robbers are arm robbers who use the internet as a weapon to defraud their innocent victims.

Civil robbers are arm rubbers who use selfishness, greediness and gluttony as weapons to deny the poor food to eat and keep them in perilous poverty.

No neighbor around you should be hungry when you can comfortably feed morethan three times a day.

Are you a civil robber, an arm robber, none of the above or all of the above? It's a rhetorical question anyway. Let your conscience tell you the right answer. Good evening 🌞 🌄

By James Patrick

#civil

#robbers

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