Celebrated Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie, has penned
an emotional tribute to her late mother, Grace Adichie, who died last month at
the age of 78.
Adichie’s mother passed on about eight months after her
father, James Adichie, who died last June at the age of 88. The late Professor
of Statistics reportedly died from complications of kidney failure while his
wife died after a brief illness.
In a Facebook post late Wednesday, the multiple
award-winning writer said her “heart break twice”.
In the piece titled, ‘How Does A Heart Break Twice?’, the United States based author wrote, “How does a heart break twice? To still be immersed in grief, barely breathing again, and then to be plunged callously back into a sorrow you cannot even articulate. How can my mother be gone forever, and so soon after my father?
“She made history as the first female registrar of the
University of Nigeria. She was a permanent board member of the Anambra State
Basic Education Board ASUBEB.
“On Friday she was at work, in her ASUBEB office in Awka.
Her lovely assistant Mimi said she seemed a bit tired. Still, back home after
work, she walked the half mile to St. Paul’s Church for Stations of the Cross.
On Saturday, she spent time in Louisa’s shop, outside the gate of our house in
Abba, watching the cars and people on the dusty road. On Sunday, her driver
drove her to Mass. Sunday evening she was unwell. She was taken to a private
hospital in Awka. We were worried, but a few hours later, she was better,
sitting up, eating rice. On the phone I told her, “We love you, Mummy, try and
rest.”
Adichie further narrated, “The next morning, the doctor sent
an update to say she was doing even better. But moments later, he took the
sudden bewildering decision to transfer her to the Teaching Hospital, and she
was hastily moved there. He claimed the Teaching Hospital had better
facilities. “Do my children know I’m being transferred?” she is said to have
asked. Two hours after she arrived at the Teaching Hospital, she died. It was
March 1st, my father’s birthday.
“How does a heart break twice? As the days have passed my
disbelief has grown. This perpetual astonishment of grief: Did it really
happen? My mother is gone forever? How is it possible?
“We were planning for my father’s iyipu-akwa, to mark the
end of the formal mourning period, and now I cannot believe that we are
planning a funeral. Again.”
“How does a heart break twice? You discover emotions you
cannot name. There is an emotion more hollow than sorrow. There is an
acceptance drenched in disbelief. Language fails. Clichés come startlingly
alive: the heart is truly heavy, it is no mere metaphor.
“The mornings so dark you cannot get up from bed, the
erratic pulse, the anger, the surprise, the tiny moments of forgetting, the
regrets, the doomed attempts at escape. But the pain is waiting. The pain is
inescapable.
“The desperate longing to turn back time, just to see her
again, hear her laugh one more time, hug and kiss her. Even if just to say
goodbye, even if just to have the chance to say goodbye, to say thank you for
everything you did for me and everything you were to me, to say I love you,
again.
“The questions. Why so soon? Why like this? Has the universe
not given us our own fair share of pain for now?
“To have loving parents, an entire life propped up by them,
and in months to have it all end, so abruptly, with such unbearable finality. O
kwerom edi,” she stated.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com