By Bimbola Segun-Amao
They’ve gotten almost 40years of marriage behind them, they are grand-parents – they must have seen it all. It was a day of idle talks, not much to be done in or outside the home, and one conversation led to another, and that to another until they got to widowhood. Grandpa without mincing words declared if his wife died before him, he would shop for another. She was shocked, hurt and disappointed. After days of hurting and carping, she called me, “Bimbola, my husband said blab blab blab …”; what was I to say? To say he was mean or didn’t love her? That wouldn’t be true. The good man has just said the truth; hard painful truth …“If you die, I move on”. I knew what I would have said if I were in her shoes- “same here, dear. Same here’.
Women are unnecessarily hard on themselves and don’t live their lives to the uttermost because of humiliation placed on them by women-alike or community. There’s this babe I would love to hug or flog, hug her if she’s turned ice queen or flog her if she’s living another woman’s script. Her beau has been buried for many years past, and she’s still on Facebook posting “it is well”; “my help is in the name of the Lord” “God cares about me” …… like I don’t know God cares about every one of us all.
See, if he dies (God forbid, Amen) and the wife is heartbroken, let her cry and weep, wail, roll on the floor, sip black tea without cream, soak garri for days without sugar, miss 2 baths in a row or shave off her shiny hair … let her find expression for her loss. But dear girlfriend, your loss cannot be mourned forever.
If after a few years (and 10, 8, 7 … isn’t few my sister, those are long wasted years) your heart tingles again, and the mention alone of a man’s name lit your face, and his presence brings warmth into your life, and you want to stroke his fingers, or bury your head in his chest, girlfriend, do not hug your child, he cannot be your boo; hug the man instead and call everybody’s bluff.
Truth is, if it were the wife whose dwelling had an epitaph above, the honey pie would find a comforting “sugar babe” in no time. Then everyone would say “it is not good for a man to be alone”. Don’t you deserve company also?
And if another woman (sis-in-law, mother-in-law, whatever title) tells you, “your child is your husband”, tell them to share their dreams with their children, giggle with them, go to the movies with them, dance with them, tickle them and get all other gratifications from the association too including sexual. You shouldn’t mourn forever, you ought to have some sunshine in your life.
If you find love after a loss, go for it! be kind to yourself.