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I have no more tears left so I’ve decided to start living
Author, Margaret Vuchiri-Alumai. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Margaret Vuchiri-Alumai says: Coping with griefIn spite of all these tragedies there is still reason to live.
I lost a cousin recently. Paul had been ill but he had greatly improved so his passing came as a huge shock. Two days after we laid him to rest, I received a call that my aunt had passed on. I couldn’t comprehend it because we had met just days earlier at her daughter’s wedding. She was in good health and radiated pure joy.
And then… my friend Nafha Ebrahimi’s husband left this mortal world! It was the kind of news that leaves you numb. It was unbelievable, very sudden and shocking, she told me. “There’s a deep void in my heart, but I’m content with the will of God.”
It was painful that I couldn’t be with her – a cruel reminder of the agonizingly lonely funerals this pandemic has now forced us into.
This could be anyone’s story. While these people succumbed to different conditions, Covid-19 has taken a heavy toll on Ugandans in recent months. Social media has become a depressing space strewn with death announcements. People offer heartfelt words of encouragement. Others post automated sympathies such as RIP, MHSRIP, or a close variation of MHDSRIP. Life goes on.
I’ve also lost colleagues – JB Ssenkubuge and Pauline Bangirana – in the past months. Similarly, my heart bleeds for a family friend who recently informed us that his mother had succumbed to Covid-19 and his young nephew had been knocked dead by a speeding car.
They were preparing for two burials that day. Is there no limit to how much grief we can endure in a given time? How do you console people going through such unbearable anguish?
My people say there comes a time when your tears dry up and you start living as if things were normal. These tragedies have taught me significant life lessons.
Funerals have a way of reminding us to appraise our own lives. Paul’s eulogy was simple and transcendental. It conveyed genuine love, exuberant laughter and compassion. It brought heartwarming smiles. In life he personified one who carried his cross with grit and grace.
These kinds of events often drive me to further search for ways to make life less stressful and more meaningful. It isn’t a complicated connection to some ancient philosophy. It is the simple things like not allowing myself to be overburdened by people’s opinions, judgments, gossip. Spending a sleepless night because I didn’t get to have the last word in a toxic social media argument or losing sleep because someone, who is not even a friend in real life, has blocked me on social media.
This, for me, is also a reinforcement of what this pandemic has taught me from the first lockdown last year. For many, that period marked what is now referred to as new normal, which necessitated working from home.
As an essential worker then, it was a demanding period that forced me to make decisions to reclaim myself from a programmed existence to a more purposeful living.
I’ve learnt to enjoy the little things that surround me. I can peacefully hop over our children’s toys without constantly instructing them to “put them back into the basket” mostly because I’m overwhelmed by work-related pressure and unintentionally unloading it on our children.
That I can drive to the insanely idyllic Entebbe on a Saturday to have breakfast by the lakeside, because I stopped worrying about things I have no control over. That the faded charm of old towns or being enchanted by sunset over the Nile in Jinja can mark an unexpected odyssey.
People derive joy from different things. That is why some people’s obituaries are grand with academic qualifications and career achievements. Others are simple, yet profoundly powerful in the way their loved ones remember them: their passions, volatility, love, wit…
Like Nafha said, her husband’s departure is heartbreaking but he felt he had fulfilled his purpose. In spite of all these tragedies and uncertainty that Covid-19 is causing, there is still reason to live.
This quote by Baháʼu’lláh aptly summarizes it: “If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure.”
Ms Vuchiri is a journalist. [email protected]
