I lost my beloved father not too long ago and I am still reeling from the loss. I have been swimming and bathing in all kinds of emotions since that terrible day. On one of those nights that the sadness had its grip on my neck, suffocating me and knocking me out of breath, I had an epiphany; okay, not an epiphany, but maybe an aha moment (thanks Ms Oprah). With all my drama, I had an epiphany that night on the floor of my bedroom at 3am that grief is very similar to an unwanted pregnancy.
I suffered through it, so you don’t have to. I hope to educate you on the uncanny resemblance between grief and an unwanted pregnancy with the following points:
Initial shock and disbelief
The day you find out what has occurred, you’d just have your jaw hanging! You will experience several “Na me be dis?” moments throughout the day. Many questions will run through your mind, urging you to disregard what you are hearing as part of a dream or a hallucination. You’ll be seated in the doctor’s office like, “Doc, are you sure?”
It cannot be undone
Once it happens, you cannot go back in time to change it, you cannot make amends; you cannot hit the rewind button because there is no remote. You cannot stop your heart from shattering to pieces. You cannot stop the apprehension. Once it has happened, you cannot go back, especially if it is after 12 weeks. You must bear it and the consequences that come after it.
You did not think it would happen to you, especially not at a time like this. The night before he passed, my dad and I were on the phone. I was planning to care for him post isolation; I was going to bring him home until he was healthy enough to join my mum in Kaduna. Death was the farthest thing from my mind. That morning as I prepared his breakfast, I had no inkling. When I got the news, I was shocked because I never thought it would happen to me. Not at the time it did. Other people lost their fathers but not Zahraun Baba. My father was meant to live forever and other arrogant thoughts…Just like when you receive the results of your pregnancy test after trusting your IUD. How can you get pregnant at 48? Shebi, that only happens to naive 16-year-olds and their hormonal boyfriends in secondary school, not the high-flying attorney you are. Imagine! After carefully planning your family now you have a baby on the way, even though your last baby is now 19.
It is something that will change you forever
You will never be the same again from the day you receive the news. It is the kind of news that will rock your world, literally and figuratively. Things you thought were important will suddenly seem irrelevant in the face of this news. Everything fades into the darkness.
You will get physically sick
Headaches, nausea, general body weakness, in short, all the symptoms of early pregnancy will manifest in you (yes, even the Hollywood ones!). You will lose your appetite; you will have sudden temperature changes and you will feel your stomach turn, a lot! In fact, you may end up being afflicted with unexplained diarrhea.
Your eating habits will change…not always for the better
Flowing from the point above, the loss of appetite will affect how much you eat, especially in the early weeks and months that follow your loss. Some people eat more during stressful periods. In summary, your eating habits will change, just as if you were pregnant or more importantly, when you are pregnant with an illegitimate pregnancy.
People will judge you
How you grieve, whether stoic or emotional, will be a hot topic among your friends and family whether you believe it or not. During the first week at least, everything you do will be interpreted and translated by others as a reflection of how well you are grieving the loss. So, if your sister falls down, my friend, you better start rolling on the floor crying out or else you didn’t feel the death well. Same as expecting a baby you were not expecting. When that bump starts showing, you may or may not hear ’haha what is she going to do with a baby at this age? Ko kunya ba ta ji? Haba’ and so on and so forth.
Many people will not understand what you are going through, but assume to. A lot of the people around you will only say what they are expected to say. It is automatic, their empty words of consolation devoid of any emotion or empathy. When they finish the performance they go right back to their lives, in front of you, at the funeral regardless of how insensitive you think it is. A neighbour said the usual greeting and right in front of me, brought out her merchandise to sell.
You will be angry and sad at the same time
It is part of the stages of processing grief to be angry. To ask painful rhetorical questions like ‘why me?’ This anger is the jacket to your sadness and the blanket to your hopeless despair. Wear it well because it will hang on your shoulders for a long time. When you are expecting a baby you would rather not be expecting, you find yourself angry at your failed contraceptive and sad for your uterus. While your friends are enjoying lives free of diapers you are busy buying cute baby clothes to console yourself.
You will be unable to do many things you enjoyed doing. Grief removes the sweet taste of life completely from your palette so that you can hardly engage in activities you used to enjoy. Nothing seems worthwhile anymore while the despondency stretches out as far as your tear-soaked eyes can see. Just like morning sickness, grief makes you irritable and incapable of partaking in the joys of life.
I hope I have been able to convince you that grief is like an unwanted pregnancy that you can do nothing about. I hope this made you laugh as I have been trying very hard to squeeze the humour out of my sentences.
May we be reunited with our dear departed loved ones in heaven, Ameen
Fatima sent this piece from Abuja
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