By Chukwuneta Oby
I was in the midst of some widows recently. And the experiences they shared during the encounter were an eye-opener. What is unanimous in their individual accounts about widowhood is loneliness.
These are women in their 40s and 50s, and I am not sure that any of them has been a widow for less than five years.
One in particular, I find quite bubbly and chatty. She made me laugh all through my stay in their midst. On how she copes with widowhood, she said that she has become more outgoing (social functions, parties, hang-outs).
She also said that she has built around herself a strong clique of friends with similar interests, and one of the ways they entertain themselves is by sometimes booking a hotel room where they all converge to eat, drink and get entertained by a male stripper.
She concluded by advising her fellow widows to find themselves two sets of men for a relationship. A wealthy man to help lessen their economic burdens, and a comfortable but less-busy man.
She reasoned that most men who have the money to change a woman’s life for good hardly have time for her emotional needs. But every woman needs that man who has the time to tell her to sleep and is available for those emotional moments when she just needs a listening ear.
She cautioned that women should be careful to ensure that such a man is not an economic liability but comfortable enough to be able to offer economic support every now and then.
The next widow who spoke explained that the lonely days hit harder when the children have gone back to school, and on such days, she does not like coming back to the house immediately after work until nighttime, when she can just come home and go straight to bed.
Well, I start by admitting that I am not in anybody’s shoes and really have no idea how enormous their struggles are.
However, what I have come to know (without a doubt) about life is that if emotional stability is what you seek, an excessive penchant for ‘fun’ will not help you in the long run. That is a different kind of addiction, and like all addictions, it does not leave your life better.
There are wholesome ways to grapple with an unpleasant phase of your life. Yes, seize the moment with pockets of pleasure, but do not become driven by such. Otherwise, your life will lack balance. There is a purpose in your reality. Find it and begin to use it to impact humanity.
Excessive pursuit of pleasure will make your life feel empty in the long run. And that’s when all ‘all sorts’ become fun to you – including practices that should ordinarily insult your moral convictions and common sense.
If life has filled an economic void in your life by bringing someone equal to the task into your life, what you need to do is guide him on how to speak your own love language.
There is nobody who genuinely needs help that God does not plant someone in their space to carry out that task, but it’s often in hindsight that we realise we had a saving grace.
Probably because a lot of times, our insatiable nature keeps looking for more and hardly appreciates who God has sent to make a difference in our lives.
What is my point? It should not be until your reality becomes worse that you can appreciate who God is using to wipe your tears so far.
If knowing where the next meal will come from is no longer your challenge, find more dignified means to contain your energy. And live a joyful life.
Someone opined recently that, “There are marriages in which spouses are simply waiting for the day death will separate them.”
No wonder some widows and widowers behave like people that have been let out of a cage, when they should be mourning the “bone of their bone”!
My admonition is for people to endeavour not to be that spouse whose demise would rather be a relief than a sad reality.
May we also realise that it should not be happiness (but a sober reflection) that greets the demise of another, let alone someone that you were married to, no matter their shortcomings.
Do you think the life that awaits you out there when a spouse dies is going to be a bed of roses? At least, you will learn the hard way that the spouse you lost was not “good for nothing.”
Forget about those initial “love queues,” they fizzle out faster than you can imagine. Ninety-nine per cent of them won’t even be there when you genuinely need a shoulder to cry on. And you will always require such shoulders.
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