International Widows’ Day 23rd June -TRUE WIDOWHOOD EXPERIENCE
Before travelling back to the city, my husband had announced to me, that he would be home again to take me and our children to Lagos, where he lived. On the 10th day of July 2013, I had finished all necessary preparations in anticipation of my husband who would have been coming home as foretold. In fact, I could not wait to have that day come but this joy was short-lived. What ought to be a joyful mood and celebration, turned into a mourning mood. This is one day I will ever live to mourn about and remember. Little did I know that the hair I made in anticipated for the journey to Lagos would end up scraped!
My husband passed out a few hours before he could embark on the long awaited journey, in his elder brother’s house just like that! According to my husbands’ siblings, there won’t be need to investigate the circumstances behind his death, and that was anticipated. However, I was very confused because, he was not ill, rather, story had it that he just passed on in his brother’s house, perhaps; details may take infinity to come.
Undoubtedly, the passage of my husband turned another chapter in my life. I suffered untold hardship. I was humiliated, accused of killing my husband and was subjected to sleeping in the room my husband was laid in state. Some of my husband’s relatives treated me like an alien. I was bereft of hope, and happiness was miles away from me. Life became cruel as long as I was concerned.
One month after I had concluded my stay-at home-mourning, I began to move out of the compound to places like the market, farm, church, peoples’ places, etc. as if the pain I was experiencing was not enough, my mother-in-law treated me with disdain, she hated me and offer to increase my excruciating pain.
As the weeks rolled into months, and the months into years, I found myself as a fish out of water. Indeed, my plight was like a fugitive who lost his way in the desert. Some of my husband’s relatives regarded me as a wicked woman, who killed her husband. One day one of my husband’s younger brothers asked me to pack out of their father’s house since we (all) lived in the same roof. True to his words, he evicted me out of the house and I was forced to rent a room in a neighbouring village, where I live. I do some petty trading for the sustenance of the children.
More still, I have been fighting the temptation of remarriage, as many men (suitors) are seeking my hand in marriage. My refusal to get remarried has made some of the suitors to hate me while some liked me the more. Right now, I am sitting on the fence hence I do not want to leave my two children (a boy and a girl) for another man. I am confused owing to my previous experiences. I need the objective opinions of the public.