Dear GhanaWeb,

I am 29 years old and the only daughter among four siblings. For the past five years, my brothers and I have barely spoken to our mother after she confessed to something that completely destroyed our family.

She admitted that she was responsible for our father’s death.

Even writing this feels unreal. Growing up, we were a close family. My father was loving, intelligent, and deeply involved in our lives. He had us at a young age, so even at 48, he was still energetic and active.

In 2017, everything changed. I still remember that morning vividly. I was doing my internship at the time, and my father personally saw me off before I left home. He looked healthy and normal. Nothing seemed wrong.

By the time I returned home that evening, people were gathered around our house telling us my father was dead.

They said it was food poisoning. Since he had gone out during the day, everyone assumed someone must have poisoned him outside.

Nobody suspected anything else, not even us. We mourned him deeply. His death affected us emotionally, financially, and mentally. We depended on him a lot, and losing him at such a young age changed our lives forever.

Then, in 2021, my mother called my elder brother and me to sit down with her. That was the day she confessed. She told us she was the one who poisoned our father.

According to her, my father wanted to divorce her because he had met another woman and was determined to leave the marriage.

She said they argued constantly whenever we were not around, but she tried to keep the problems away from us.

Eventually, she found out who the other woman was and decided she wanted to kill both of them. But somehow, only my father died. She told us she regretted it every single day.

She said guilt was eating her alive and that she confessed because she felt we deserved to know the truth and could do whatever we wanted with the information.

My brother and I were shattered. We told our younger siblings, and from that day, we all abandoned her and left the house to her. None of us reported her to the police. At the time, we felt it would not bring our father back or heal our pain.

Since then, my brothers have completely cut her off. They refuse to even hear her name. I am the only one who still checks up on her occasionally. Sometimes I send her money or call to see how she’s doing.

Part of me is angry because what she did was unforgivable. My father did not deserve to die because of jealousy or heartbreak. She had other options. She could have walked away, divorced him, or fought for her marriage differently.

But another part of me sees a broken woman living with guilt every day. She has even spoken about ending her own life because of the pain and loneliness.

Now I feel torn between loyalty to my father and compassion for my mother. I want my brothers to forgive her, but I’ve tried all I could and nothing is working.

What do I do now?


FG/EB


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