(My husband had passed away the previous day and we we were preparing for his funeral......)
The
following day as relatives and friends gathered around me to deal
with the shocking news, my world turned literally 'blue' and was
going round and round around me. The 22nd of September was
a different day, different from all other days. The sun dawned from
the west, and everything all just seemed mixed up. This death was a
mix up. There must have been a mistake somewhere, as I was not really
sure that this was happening to me. I sat there numb, cheeks in the
palm of my hands, as I watched events unfolding yet again. I did not
feel an urge to cry, because 'surely this was not real.' I saw
close relatives and friends coming to console me, wailing in
disbelief at the top of their voices. All I could do was just watch
the world pass by yet again, wondering what was really wrong with me.
My world had been shattered.
There
is a story for me which ended on the 22nd of September that
year as my husband’s body was transported to his home village for
an overnight vigil as is the custom, and for burial on the following
day. As he was buried in his home village, this closed a chapter in
my life as I pondered where I would start my next life chapter with
all my expectations shattered like that. Although it took me time to
recover, yet again I had to start to learn life lessons and start to
live on my own, raising up a young child on my own.
This
was the beginning of a new chapter and a new life. Life was not easy
but I entered a phase of my life where I had to fend for myself and
for my child. In that male dominated society, I now stood alone, bare
and exposed with no-one to lean on. I was no longer in the shadows of
my brother or sister. I no longer had to stand by a man as society
expected. Although there were really sad moments after that I learnt
to pick myself up to what I am today. I felt as is no-one, not even
family members seemed to understand the agony that I was going
through. I felt misunderstood.
We
all need to re-new our thinking time and again
I
write today from England because I managed to pick myself up. I had
to literally start learning about life all over again. I vowed
re-invent myself, and pick from that day onwards. And I had to do it
all by myself. I couldn’t ask for counselling from friends or
family who had not experienced what I experienced. I could not seek
bereavement counselling from anyone I knew. When I lost my husband,
relatives were with me for at most a week. After that everyone was
back to business yet I was hurting inside.
In
that situation I had to learn to console myself and to draw from what
other people said to me. This is when I learnt that at times, in a
society with few support systems, you need to learn things all by
yourself, to teach yourself lessons from what life throws at you. It
is not all about learning academically in the classroom and lectures
rooms as I had done, we need to learn about life every day, change
everyday and apply those life lessons to our daily life.
Seeking
healing
Through
out my whole life, I had grown up internalising feelings, whether
they were of anger, frustration, hurt or bereavement. I was somebody
who could only deal with emotions by internalising them. I did that
very well. When we had something that we needed to talk about like
growing up as teenage girls, the African culture did not allow us to
discuss this openly. We did not talk about the changes that were
happening to our bodies, (that tingling sensation that we all feel
sometimes!) about having babies or how babies are made, we did not
talk about death, or anger or happiness. We did not talk about
falling in love, about having children, about family
problems......... It was part of how we were socialized.
Each
family member had their own ways of dealing with such emotions. I
don’t know how other family members dealt with all these emotions,
neither do I know the inner secrets in their lives, their hurts, what
happened to them and that which they do not want to talk about. They
have their stories to tell which are completely different to mine.
As
life moved on, I discovered that I was not getting anywhere expecting
anyone to carry my feelings with them. As I grew mature and as I gave
birth to my child, somehow I began to understand life and death, that
after life comes death. Everyone will eventually die. With maturity,
I learnt the art of opening up to others, slow and painful as it was.
I was now able to discuss some of the subjects that we thought were
taboo. I began to talk openly about my bereavement. I asked myself
hard questions and gave myself answers. I started moving out of my
shell and I made a commitment to meet others. But this had to be
gradual. I joined a Church, joined a group of friends and in no time,
Church leaders started to refer young women to me – those who had
recently been bereaved. Each case was tragic as it was different.
I
was at a loss as how to help them. I had to find ways of helping them
so as to help myself. At first I didn’t know how to. Soon I
realised that for me to get my healing and closure to some of the
issues from my past, I had to learn to help others. So I quickly
learnt how to do this in very unconventional ways. I looked back and
looked at all those things that I had needed that other women who had
problems needed. Women needed a listening ear, I listened. Those
grieving women needed encouragement, I encouraged them. They needed
information as to where to go, I helped them with what I knew and
signposted them to the right places. I encouraged them to ask
questions if they didn’t know. I encouraged them to fill in any
information and knowledge gaps if they had any, to pick themselves
from where their late husbands had left them and start a new life.
Besides this, I discovered that it was not only bereaved women who
sought help, a lot of women came up with their problems. I really
felt the burden to go beyond the boundaries that I had set myself.
Women were caught up in poverty, some were in abusive relationships,
some were not literate, some were single, some were bereaved, some
did not have jobs. The multitude of problems was just too much.
Through this, I discovered that I got the healing that I had never
had, and in turn I could get further healing by helping others.
(This
is an extract from my forthcoming autobiography ….so it's unedited
and it's still under construction. If you understand where I'm coming
from, I worry more about getting the message across than anything
else. If you want to understand more about my life, you need to
understand what's in my new book available on this link;
or you can get in touch via my twitter account @lilac_ruth, via my facebook page or via the CharityHope Trust website
All the best
All the best
Ruth
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