Nobody knows what I feel (Part 2)

 

WIDOWHOOD 2

 They lowed the coffin into the grave, a pastor prayed and they thrust a shovel into her hand. She stared at it in confusion until someone held her hand, dipped the shovel on the heap of sand and guided it to the open grave, upturned the sand, and it fell on the shiny coffin with a soft thud.

They removed the shovel from her, someone else, a woman, took her hand and led her away from the graveside, to a chair specially kept for her as the chief mourner. She sat, dazed and dissociated from the clatters around her; the music, the drinking, the eating and the hushed murmuring voices.

She watched with clear but unseeing eyes, the lineup of people who came to sympathise with her. “Take heart,” they told her. She nodded her head. “The Lord is your strength,” another said. “Trust God, He knows why it happened, It is well with you.” Someone else said. “Madam, sorry o, take heart, you will get over it,” yet another said. The words kept coming, for each person that came up had something to say. She wanted to scream, to ask them to stop, but they would think she had gone mad.

She bowed her head, and asked God when this nightmare will be over, she wanted to wake up, she wanted this to be just a bad dream, and she wanted to believe her husband was yet to come back from his trip to the east. Yet even when her heart refused to accept it, the reality was there before her.

With this thought, came the sudden realisation she would never see him again; a strangled cry erupted from her mouth. The tears she thought have dried up came down in torrent. They held her as her body rocked with the force of her anguish. “Shut up and behave yourself, your crying will not bring him back, his gone, and nothing will change that fact.” A woman scolded her.

Everyone has been telling her to shut up, to endure, to have faith in God. But does anybody understand what she was really feeling. How her heart was bleeding. How everything seemed so unreal to be real.

Sister, maybe you feel nobody understands, but we do it’s a route many has tread before you. Welcome to the club of widowhood, this is just the beginning of another phase of your life. Some facts to hold on to, apart from God, you’re alone; forget the promises made by friends and family to assist you.  With time you will discover most of your friends, especially the married ones will keep you at arm’s-length after the initial sympathy; they wouldn’t want you to be a walking temptation to their husbands, nor a burden to them. Also, after a year many will disperse from your life, but those who stick with you are the true friends, the ones who really understand.