Dear readers, what I am about to write may not be appreciated by someone who doesn’t know what it is to lose someone so dear to him. However, the last thing I ever want to happen to anyone is losing a close one; it is traumatic.
It’s been five years since I lost my Andrew to what doctors said was a minor migraine. It amazes me how a condition no one ever thought could lead to death suddenly becomes the reason that someone so dear to you could die. Andrew only complained of what I thought was a minor headache on a part of his head; and before anyone knew what was happening, we were already wheeling him to the morgue.
As we lowered him down six feet that Friday morning at a private cemetery in Lagos, I felt like a part of me was being buried with him. He left me with a kid of just eight years; my son, who is the love of my life. Andrew left me with Junior who looks every inch like his late father. He also left us with a lot of money, a beautifully built house in Ikoyi, and two cars; but even all these were not and will never be enough to console me.
I knew Andrew’s death would encourage a lot of men to make passes at me since I was only 29 years old when he passed on. Well, I guessed right because even people I least suspected would make advances at me didn’t even wait too long before they started. That part of me that was buried along with Andrew just won’t resurrect, and it makes it virtually impossible to love anyone else.
There is this sense of guilt that envelopes me each time I find myself smiling or laughing at someone’s joke. People think this is abnormal, but I don’t think so because I enjoy it just the way it is. You can’t have the love that I had and expect to love someone else; except if you never loved the person in the first place.
There is this particular guy in the same church I attend every Sunday who simply won’t let go. He bothered me so much that I had to threaten him with an uncle of mine who is a military officer. Though, my uncle wants me to remarry, the fact that the guy hails from a particular part of the country he doesn’t like made him develop a kind of hatred for him. There were other guys too that pressured me, but that same sense of guilt just won’t go away.I just always came up with one excuse after the other
A few of my friends had suggested I visited a psychiatrist so I could get some help; but even that makes me feel like I was trying to get Andrew off my mind at all cost. Though, I am fully conscious of the fact that my husband was dead and buried and will never return to me again; I still feel like I am not ready to love another.
Someone once cracked an expensive joke; and I didn’t find it funny at all. The joke was cracked in form of a question; “if Andrew was alive, would he have been this faithful even in death?” As soon as Ifeoma, a close friend asked the question, I felt the tears rolling down my cheek. I was so sick in the heart that I quietly asked her to excuse me, and went straight into the room to cry. Could she be right? Would Andrew have been this faithful even in my absence?
Dear readers, nothing seems to move me; not even the fact that no man had made love to me for five years bother me.
I no longer feel like I could offer my love to anyone again. Could this be right? I no longer have the passion to love any man the same way I loved Andrew. Could this also be right? Am I sick? Now it’s your turn to tell me; now that you know what I am going through.God I need your help.
