The woman sat through the afternoon, seemingly oblivious to everyone else around her. As a carer, I wondered if she was a mental health patient or just did not know what to say. The room was quiet, but there were those moving around with drinks and small bites. I was completely disinterested, and my grief would not let me even consider a bite. My stomach was in rumbles, and I could neither taste nor keep anything down. I looked around, and everyone looked downcast. The bereaved lay on a chair, her eyes swollen from crying. It was a daughter who had passed. Young, brilliant, and gorgeous A condolences register stared at us from the hallway. The living room door was ajar. Everyone told the bereaved sorry and sat silent. But Ms “Far-away look”, the one I mentioned at the beginning, seemed on a certain mission. Determined, she began her treatise.
After someone led a sombre hymnal and said a prayer to firm things up and give solace to the bereaved, Madam Far Away Look seized the moment and began to regale the visiting guests and the bereaved with the story of her late husband’s passing. Unable to gather enough attention, she then stood up and continued in a high-pitched tone as if addressing a political rally. When he was sick, how long, which hospitals he was in, the battle with her in-laws, her grieving period and her encounter with the Holy Spirit. If it was a two-minute tale of encouragement, it would have been brilliant. But she was on a roll for 40 minutes, her voice undulating as if it were a TV show. Horrified, members of the visiting party started looking for the best way to stop her. Energised by a tiny group of listeners, she now went into gear 5 of her unsolicited soap opera. The bereaved, barely able to say a word, was looking like she had swallowed a fly. One visitor brought her to a screeching halt by choosing to break into a hymn and bring forth a reading from the psalms. Madam Far Away’s look finally sat down, her eyes hazy from her now eight-year-old story. She had her 40 minutes of fame, but it was self-serving and ugly, and the rest of us were embarrassed by her complete lack of empathy. Madam, please remember, it was not a show, and even if it were, it was not your show.
I have found over the years that grief can make you “come undone” as award winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie put it when she lost her Dad in her slim line book ‘Notes on grief’. I have always wanted to write about grief, from when I lost my dad and my hero, Mr Alfred Amodu, to when I lost my younger sister, Josephine Amodu, and then my mum, Madam Josephine Amodu. It was all gut-wrenching, and I was sure that those dark places which grief took you to opened an unprecedented floodgate of creativity. The words that curl up in your throat, the tears that come unannounced, the water boiling in your tummy, and the crazy headache and images that take possession of your body all culminate to grant you an unsolicited out-of-body experience. The pain is often indescribable, but for a higher being, grief can certainly kill.
“She had her 40 minutes of fame, but it was self-serving and ugly, and the rest of us were embarrassed by her complete lack of empathy.”
It is in the face of all this pain that people say the most insane things to you or the most inane. Visiting with an aunty who was grieving, an in-law walked in and asked the stupidest of questions. Which one passed, madam? Is it the one who was all over the place, very everywhere? Our eyes met, and I wanted to slap the lady. Another one came in and said, ‘I heard your uncle kicked the bucket.’ What on earth? The man asking the silly question stood jauntily at the door and thought he was cute. The bereaved, aching all over, just looked up cursorily and returned to looking down. The visitors stared at him in shock. If eyes could kill.
But there are those whose only interest is interrogatory. Was she ill? is good enough. How long was she ill followed. What manner of illness? Did she have children? I am not sure I have ever met her. Are her children grown? Did she work in Abuja? What did she do? This information originated from a single individual during a solitary phone conversation. This man is dragging me down a rabbit hole because he needs to know about a sister who I just lost, whom he does not know. Should I get inside the phone and yank him to a stop? I am polite because that’s how I was socialised by my parents.
The passing of my younger sister, Maryanne Amodu-Asuku, painful as it is, has suddenly thrown up the question of how we manage grief as a people. My spouse often says he does not know what to say when he visits people who are grieving, so he is usually quiet lest he say the wrong things. It is actually the best way. Silence can be comforting when your heart is in turmoil, when your heart is wrenched with grief, when your sights are dark, and when your head seems in a spin.
But those who come to visit the grieving must be careful not to intensify the pain.
As we commit Maryanne to Mother Earth today, may she rest, and may all who are grieving find the peace of God. Amen.
