I was going to take a nap and then I decided to kill off the husband of the woman who currently lives in my head. She’s in her mid twenties, our woman, married to a man who she loves with the entirety of her being just as he loves her. They’ve been married five years now, wed in a small, intimate ceremony after dating for less than a year. Their marriage is nothing short of blissful.
They go out to watch a play one night and are involved in an accident. Moments before disaster strikes, our husband realises what is about to happen and uses his body to shield his wife, protecting her from harm. He dies of course and she’s left in a comatose state, no bodily harm sustained. She wakes up and starts asking for her husband, screaming frenetically and ripping the IV out of her arm. She cries and screams until she passes out from exhaustion, a cycle that continues for days. She has family with her, her grandmother who tries to keep her grandchild from killing her self while fighting the husband’s family who want to bury their son while his wife is still in hospital. One day, our woman decides it’s time to bury her husband, well, cremate him. Being irreligious, they’d both decided that when they died they wanted to be cremated. His family vehemently disagreed. You see, they’re Christian and such things are unheard of in their faith. A family member takes to social media to express their displeasure with the wife of their son for trying to burn his body rather than bury it in consecration to their god. The internet does the work for our woman and the family realises how stupid their position appears to be to rational individuals. He’s cremated and she places the jar with his ashes in it on the centre table, dipping her hands in it often to feel like she’s still touching him, like their experience has not ended. She wants to die because how will she continue to live without her anchor? Theirs was a love that was so encompassing that she could simply not envision life without him.
I set out to write about love but instead, like most things I write, somehow it’s tainted with sadness. It’s almost like I can’t envision love without loss. My pillow was near soaked before I decided to actually write this because I felt it so hard I made myself cry. I feel the poignant sadness of my woman and in this sadness I feel the love that inspired it.
Sadness is part of our lives and I think your story is beautiful because it shows the reality of love and how sadness and grief is part of losing a loved one or letting them go. I really love your writing by the way Atinuke. P.S this is your opp
Thank you for this amazing read❤️