Unpacking Grief
By: Chidera Onyekachukwu
Tags: Death, Loss, Life, Grief

Death was always a strange concept to me, I call it a concept because it’s one of those things I knew happened for sure but I just refused to pay any attention. I just didn’t want to deal with it so it was easy to evade.

It’s very easy to mutter or type ‘Rest In Peace’ to a stranger because it’s just a random person , not like their lives don’t matter but you just don’t know them enough for it to incapacitate you. I know this because this was me , in as much I evaded the idea of death , I was always ready to offer condolences to grieving friends and strangers. I’d say stuff like ‘sending you love and light’ , ‘you’ll be fine’ , ‘things will get better’ and the likes.

Oh how easy and simple it was.

Till it was my turn to deal with grief , when I got the news a friends death sometime in May , I was in shock for the first week, so many thoughts were rushing through my head. The recurring thought was HOW?, it just didn’t make any sense to me. It was so strange , I’d wake up randomly in the night and be muttering ‘HOW’. I was in a very dark place that month but things got better or I just learned to manage myself.

Months ago went by, another death came that hit closer than the previous one . I used to tell myself I was strong but omo , I had not known the kind of pain I experienced then before. I had hit rock bottom but I was trying my best to move forward. I was .

I can never forget this Saturday morning in August, I woke up pretty excited and ready to rock and roll, then I just randomly clicked WhatsApp and I saw pictures of black panther flying around. I assumed it was his birthday till I entered Twitter and saw his death announcement. The little progress I was managing was gone , I wept as I was doing my chores.

Life is really so fickle. Damn.

The following months came with more death news but I was already numb , I felt nothing .

Few weeks later , I watched as Nigerian army opened live bullets on peaceful protesters on Instagram live. People were dying on Instagram live yunno?. It felt like a movie . My spirit was so broken that night.

I thought that’s the most pain 2020 could possibly offer , after all they say weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning ba?. I was hoping for better days .

I lost someone I grew up with some weeks back, he died on Wednesday and was buried on Saturday. Everything happened so fast , too fast for my liking . I have attended burials but mostly for elderly people that I barely knew , this was my first ever ‘real’ burial , I just wanted to pay my last respects, it’s the least I could do.

It was my first time in a cemetery, I tried making my way to his grave( can’t believe I’m saying that now) without tramping on the grave of others. During the burial procession, I wasn’t hearing anything, I kept looking at the big white coffin . It felt so final , like when he is buried , there is no coming back from that .

As the coffin was lowered into the grave , one of the pallbearers lost his grip and I heard the sound of his head hit the inside of the coffin. I’m not forgetting that sound in a while. As they were heaping the sand, his dad was in tears. I cannot describe the kind of pain I felt that morning, my heart was in pieces literally.

As I made my way out of the cemetery, I saw the graves of young people with their ages inscribed.

Things dey happen .

I texted some close friends that morning and told them I am drowning in a lot of pain. Bless them, they offered me condolences, it’s the best they could do , no doubt but I was irritated.

I appreciate the gestures but what can your ‘love and light’ do?

You see, nobody teaches you how to grief, there is no certain way , no right or left or black or white. It’s like a grey area, do whatever works for you.

Personally, I think I prefer to grief silently or maybe it just irritates me when people ask ridiculous question like ‘ what happened to him?’ , ‘was he sick?’. Bla bla bla.

Like ma’am, I need you to borrow some emotional intelligence and read the damn room, this is neither the time or the place for this . What do you need all the info for in the first place?. I might be overreacting but people do too much at times .

And the death of someone isn’t an opportunity to preach to the bereaved , just be silent okay?

Death has opened my eyes that life is really so fickle, one minute you’re here , the next you’re not. The phrase ‘you only live once’ used to feel like a catchphrase but now I realize that YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE literally.

On a lighter note , Golden was all about the enjoyment life , he was always posting videos (he was always starting his videos with ‘hey guys’ with a corny accent, miss that about him)whenever he was out with his friends, he was jovial and full of life . Love the fact that he enjoyed life a bit while he was here. I hope he’s in a better place❤️