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.
