In life today I have come to agree that the two sure components of living are birth and death, as every other thing in-between remains a desire which even in dexterity, it is destiny that completes. The journey of life though so unpredictable is so valuable to have. Everything I planned did not go as planned but I had to learn to walk into the unplanned to get a plan and that includes facing the reality of those marriage vows “till death do us part”, when my husband died 23 years ago.

Hope Nwakwesi

By Hope Ifeyinwa Nwakwesi

AS a teenage girl I opted for marriage in search of a “better life” in “fear” of economic disempowerment, to a great loving young police man. Before I was matured enough to marry my husband in our marriage, death came and took that opportunity presenting a greater “fear”, which is the ordeal of widowhood with my four beautiful little kids. Being married before my 18th birthday and widowed before my 28th birthday from a very humble background life really gave me a lemon which I simply have to learn to enjoy the taste of. I will forever maintain that there is  value in life no matter how difficult you might think it is; once you have breath each atom of that oxygen is priceless and precious. The taste of life in widowhood is so sour and acrid, but finding a means of flavouring it through God’s grace was all I did to survive. “Till death do us apart” is a phrase best imagined than experienced yet destiny has designated those that must experience it.

Anger and denial

On that fateful day, what I was expecting was sure never what I got. Like a dream, came the knock that welcomed the feet which brought the news. It is a news that shattered my dreams and broke my walls in its tiniest pieces. I was shocked beyond words, frightened to a freeze and shattered above all imaginations; my world became a nightmare right in bright daylight. In all my every effort to fathom the reality as I wailed, I had to go back to a forced sleep of acceptance after my anger and denial; so as to make another dream.

In waking to the new dream, which is my new title “a widow” I went first into building my world back. In all my effort to wall back my life, the window I realized I could not fix back because the hands of the world has taken away the right size latch. To save my life, rather than join our culture in destroying myself by trying to fix the window back with the undersize latch left I left it in its open state, and faced my new station thus; unknowingly was satisfying the societal desire. This, I found out later; they needed it open so they can continuously look in to feed their Suspicions, justify their Assumptions and conclude to their Expectations.

No matter how a marriage is counseled or processed, nothing can ever prepare a wife for a life of widowhood if destiny dishes the dough to her. In fear, I operated for years to survive and today looking back I realized that my greatest problem in my survival was the mental culture of our system. The unwritten imaginations that have turned to images in our cultural practices! It is a belief system stated even in the silence, that the death of my husband has made me a conditioned individual, and as such I am no longer privileged to equality nor equity in any treatment; not just by the family but by the society. I am made an “accursed” thus ostracized. It is in it that I understood the Bible verse in Isaiah 54:40 “reproach of widowhood”.

The burial of my husband came a week after his death and I had to stay one month in the village to perform all the traditional rites. I remember a fellow woman exchanging words with my mother when she tried lobbying if I can go earlier because of my job and children’s school. That stay cost me a lot because on coming back most of the goods I had in a small shop I just opened prior to my husband’s death got spoiled. Who was I to tell and will I have been allowed?

Among the challenges I had to face right after the burial were segregation, alienation, victimization and exploitation. I realized immediately that families and friends’ love and understanding reduced by the second until I learned to expect none in their assumption. I was exploited physically and emotionally; as assumptions were concluded according to people’s desire.

I was exposed to fear, fear of what was happening and will happen around me that did happen. My whole being was drained in pain, pain of my loss and all that I have to accommodate on a daily basis. I saw what shame in the reproach of widowhood meant, where you are seen as cursed in their attitudes and treatment. All these sent me into grieving; I grieved for my loss and my state which because of their segregation and alienation I was thrown into loneliness. Yet I had to drown my emotions to uphold my kids.

Yes, the children: imagine my 4 year-old daughter, after asking me why didn’t daddy beg or say no to his death, saying to me, “mummy please don’t die, I do not want to be an orphan”. Their emotional state I could see even in their solitude, which I fought continuously to get them out of with every tiny strength left in me.  They watched my position which I realized dictated their disposition and as such I had to internally deal with my own emotional battle. Beyond the imagination of the world around, I mourned secretly deep down even to the thought of suicide. I have no one to share truly the depth of my problems but God; He became and remained my strength and anchor.

My kids and I were frightened about our state, and who wouldn’t be? After the burial of my husband as the body was covered with sand and the last community singing was done, came the refreshments and behold one by one the crowd disappeared, leaving us all alone.

Then came the truth. You are no longer the same; you are alone. I realized I was fully dressed yet naked as everyone feels they can see and use you as desired. This notion made me more frightened as I went into my closet. Like a snail I moved into my shell knowing that I am alone in this alone path.

I sought for understanding in empathy but was made to know I deserve none. Even as I learnt later in my survival not to seek permission from anyone for my joy but to create it myself, yet in so many of life’s pleasures the taste was never the same as the society made sure they reminded me at each spot. All these I learned from the things that started happening to me right after his burial. I was either seen by most relatives, friends and even colleagues as a burden and as such was either locked out with apathy or locked in sympathy in their abuse.

Life’s pleasures

Coming back after the burial, the kids had to go back to school. Just as we were getting to learn to adjust to the facts of our state, only to wake one day barely a month after the death of my husband to be given an eviction notice to move out of the quarters we were living in. In trying to understand and seek assistance, three months later I came to work only to have my suspension letter without pay pasted publicly on the notice board. Reason? I do not know as I have no copy of that letter. I remember walking into the school that fateful morning in June with my mourning attire to see people gathered at the notice board. As they all turned to look at my lifeless living body, my late friend, God bless her soul, came wanting to stop me from coming further. Filled with curiosity I forced through her and walked to find out what was on the board. Behold was my suspension letter to which I had no prior warning. My window is open, all can look, all can take whatever they wanted and when I resist, I will be broken further by taking the smallest Will and strength left by inflicting more pain. I was barely 28 years old, four kids of 8 to 4 years, no husband, no house and no job. Yes, how did I survive? I learned three months into widowhood to embrace God solely. The battle of widowhood was overwhelming my desolate soul, spirit and body.  When I went appealing for mercy, I was made to understand in life we all have a card to use  for a win especially when conditioned.

After these long years, I wrote a book “A Widow’s Window” where in brief, I chronicled the life of an average widow in our society. As a widow, woman and man, I tell you, the greatest obstacle to our struggles is the fear which has grown more from the attitude and treatment of our society.

In surviving widowhood the issues I faced were both physical and emotional with the emotional being the root cause. I have to learn to be the father and mother as well as the husband to me. I have to learn to deal with the mental ostracism created by our cultural beliefs with its emotional disparity. My pain daily was just not physically in the treatment but mentally as I battled within these five emotions of fear, pain, shame, grief and loneliness.

Today having been battered and bruised, fallen, faulted and falter yet I am emboldened as I rise to speak that the culture of secrecy and silence approach to widowhood had remained the reason for downward transmission of attitudes and treatments to generations.

There is need to demystify widowhood in our culture by replacing silence with salience on its issues; thus my new project Almanah Hope Foundation. It is a mentorship based forum for association, recreation and relaxation that will provide emotional empowerment to enable widows harness their economic capacity effectively as well as work to demystify widowhood in the society. The greatest obstacle against survival in widowhood is the mental culture of our system which seems to be highly contagious and in order to ratify it’s problems there’s need for the society to first redefine our culture not just as in a way of life but most in our way of thinking as well.

Widowhood is known to be characterized by poverty and loneliness but I tell you, loneliness is the absolute poverty in widowhood. The culture of segregation breeds alienation, victimization, and exploitation. These attitudes and treatment today is seen as the norm in our society.

Hope Nwakwesi’s book, A Widow’s Window, was published in 2016