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(A Nonfiction and Book Review)  Semicolon: The World Won't Stop“How is it that the world keeps going, breathing in and out unchanged, while in my soul there is a permanent scattering.” (Page 12) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) We were writing when I explained the function of a semi-colon to a mentee. I say, “It is like a life is ending but someone or something has to continue. Like everything stopped but there is everything left.” This is what grief feels like. While combing through central park, I tell a friend that the cruel thing about death for me isn’t how everything stops but how everything must continue. And the continuation isn’t so much as a lack of love, but it is just the way the world is built. With a peal of blue sarcastic laughter, I said that even the person who calls you the light of their world will look to the sun as a compromise to keep going. The person who says they can’t breathe without you will realize that grief doesn’t make breathing an option to your nostrils and lungs. It encapsulates life and just shoves itself past what feels like a clog in your nostrils, a choking block in your throat and a knot in your chest as you mourn. I remember when Chadwick Boseman died on August 28, 2020 – it was as if God took something from all of us. The mourning and outpour of gratitude, social media posts, and quotes laced with the love I hope he equally felt when he was alive was a different type of grief. When Chimamanda Adichie’s father passed away, it felt the same way for many. In a more recent conversation with another friend, I shared that it is funny how someone you don’t know so well dies, and you can feel the shattering, but someone you also know can die, and there is nothing to feel. Only a few meaningful people to the deceased truly feel the shattering. In in this book, Chimamanda feels an undeniable shattering which she shares through the courage and sanity she can muster. To Be Touched by Grief “Until now, grief belonged to other people. Does love bring, even if unconsciously, the delusional arrogance of expecting never to be touched by grief?” (Page 51) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) The first time in my adult and conscious years of attending a funeral was when a friend’s father died about three years ago. It was a wake. I remember discussing with someone else how, ironically, like an oxymoron, soon after the burial, there would be an extravagant ceremony where all these people would eat and merry as if they didn’t just mourn my friend’s father passing or they weren’t just touched by grief. It was and is tradition. Continuation is tradition. Until then, I had prided myself with the thought that I had not experienced the death of someone I knew, anyone so close to me, or someone whose life was meaningful to mine. But it happened on April 16, 2020, when my first mentor, Mr. Chimezie Justin Njoku passed away. Early last year, in a conversation with a mentor about grief, I shared how it is interesting that there is a phase of one’s life when birthday parties will be most of the ceremonies they attend; there is another phase of weddings and naming ceremonies. Then, there is another phase, at an older age, where grief and death become too familiar. Yet, life and death can choose to defy this order against our will. The Hypothesis of Grief(You understand why someone died, but you can’t stop asking why.) “Yes, he was eighty-eight, but a cataclysmic hole now suddenly gapes open in your life, a part of you snatched away forever. ‘It has happened, so just celebrate his life,’ an old friend wrote, and it incensed me. How facile to preach about the permeance of death, when it is, in fact, the very permanence of death that is the source of anguish. I wince now at the words I said in the past to grieving friends. ‘Find peace in your memories,’ I used to say. To have love snatched from you, especially unexpectedly, and then be told to turn to memories. Rather than succor, my memories bring eloquent stabs of pain that say, ‘This is what you will never again have.’” (Page 22) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief)
I think processing their death or grieving about it interpreted in the form of questions I couldn’t answer. These two people had so much life within them, and they lived! Even in the face of their loss, I knew I could find joy in knowing that they lived fully when they were alive, regardless of their ailments. And they were good people too. When they died, I started to ask myself – so what exactly am I supposed to learn from their death? I literary said, God, am I supposed to be inspired to live fully or better now? And on other days, I felt guilty for being selfish in my questioning. I thought people I love died, and most of what I could think was what I am supposed to learn from their passing. I also thought, What’s the point of living if we are going to die anyway? It is like taking years to build a castle with Lego bricks and, all of a sudden, randomly kicking it down. Why should an experience so cruel be given the privilege of meaning? And regardless of its cruelty, why should we still desire meaning in it? When others try to answer this question or ward it off, they say things like God knows best. The more interesting thing is how it forces a renewal towards interpreting everything. Like if someone lives, we say it is God’s will and praise him, and if the same person dies, we either say the same thing or blame the devil for its evil. We pick and choose what God takes responsibility for in search of meaning or relief when grieving. Or, we credit the devil for something that was a part of God’s will or an implication of it. Impulsive“With her death, the idea of control was gone. Death could just come hurtling at you one day and at any time, as it had with her. She was perfectly fine one moment, the next, she had a very bad headache, and the next she was gone.” (Page 64) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) Chimamanda Adichie’s book isn’t only about her father but about other meaningful people. She shares the hurting from deaths that happened to some relatives within a short period. Life is like a race with different finish lines, and with the death of people who are meaningful to you, it is almost like someone passed a baton to you. On some days, you want to run, and you want to learn, memorialize their death, and make it mean something. On other days, your body defies you. When people die, you see people post about how life is fragile and you should love people while they are here and accessible to you. It is true. The impulsiveness of death or life, depending on how you see it, makes you buy things, ask for forgiveness, be shameless, try to live right, care and at the same time, stop caring about some things or people that don’t value life. Death teaches you about life and grief teaches you about love.“Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved. How odd to find it so exquisitely painful to read my own words.” (Page 51) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) In a very old discussion with a friend, even before these losses, he said something that I have held unto, “The person that has nothing to lose has nothing to love, and the person that has nothing to love, what’s the purpose of their life?” I tell myself if you want to know what God feels like – a perfect state of love, grief, and loss would teach you that. Unfortunately, life is only more meaningful because we know it can be lost. Synonyms“I back away from condolences. People are kind, people mean well, but knowing this doesn’t make their words rankle less.” “Demise.” A favorite of Nigerians, it conjures for me dark distortions. “On the demise of your father.” I detest “demise.” “He is resting” brings not comfort but a scoff that trails way to pain.” (Page 21) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) Until I experienced the grief of someone meaningful to me, I too was guilty of wanting to help anyone affected by grief move on with positive words or actions. These days, I know differently; not so much better because my old ways may have been valuable to someone else, but I know differently. I have a friend who always asks, “what do you want: comfort or advises?” when I bring my sorrows to him. I was also sharing recently in a Clubhouse room that, especially in Christian communities, we don’t sometimes know how to cater to someone who is falling apart for any valid reason because we are so hung on the perfection and miracles of our religion; the raising from the dead; I was blind, now I can see; I was sick, now I am healed. We dismiss their pain or peel on the scab of those who need healing in our thrive for perfection. In conversations with a friend who is also grieving, I am learning to be still and just listen. I am also learning how her language can become our language in managing her grief. I am understanding that grief, sometimes, is eternal for someone who loved so well and right. I have noticed that she prefers to say the word “transition” instead of “died.” I am learning that. Sometimes, when you are supporting a grieving person, take a step back to listen. Know that support can be sitting or walking in silence as much as it is conversing and throwing ideas of what needs to be done to help them “get out of their grief and heal.” I am learning that sometimes, healing too can come from embracing grief, as an act of love and death as a continued life elsewhere, or however, they choose to define and synonymize it.  Useless Sadness“Why does the image of two red butterflies on a T-shirt make me cry? We don’t know how we grieve until we grieve.”(Page 65) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief)
One part of me thinks maybe I need to travel or do something outrageous and new, but that only solves boredom and alternates productivity; it doesn’t remove the sadness or grief. It is like continually swallowing a placebo with faith when you know there is no cure to love or no treatment for losing someone who meant a lot to you and passed away. At times this sadness feels like a parasite leaching to my throat and stealing food from my breath. I forget to breathe sometimes when I think about it. And there are days when I feel like if I stop breathing or hold my breath for just 20 more seconds than usual, this sadness inside me will suffocate and die. How things are done...“My mother says that some widows have come to tell her what custom is. First, the widow will be shaved bald – and before she can continue, my brothers promptly say that this is ridiculous and not going to happen. I say that nobody ever shaves men bald when their wives die; nobody ever makes men eat plain food for days; nobody expects the bodies of men to wear the imprint of their loss. But my mother says she wants to do it all: “I’ll do everything that is done. I’ll do it for daddy.” (Page 52) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) Still combing through central park, I tell a friend that I hate the cultural parts of mourning, and if anyone ever does a culturally exaggerated version when I die, I’ll hunt them. Of course, it was a light-hearted joke. But the sexist rigor of customs and traditions or religion continues. When I read this part of Notes on Grief, I was angry too. While I understand that people, within their cultural knowledge, will do what they think is right, I couldn’t help but think, someone just died, and the next thing someone else is worried about because of “tradition” is who shouldn’t have hair on their head; as if death is not stripping enough. Even more recently, while observing the funeral arrangement of someone I knew, I observed how the concern soon moved from the deceased or their close relatives to the meals of those who will attend the funeral, what gifts they will take home, and the color of clothing people should wear. Again, I couldn’t help but think, “someone just died.” I wonder how these things will change with younger generations who now prioritize mental health over culture or the value of traditions. No matter how someone tries to make these traditions make sense to me, it doesn’t. It makes me ask, did our traditions come from meaning or lack of understanding? I think, with the available of new knowledge and current cultures, traditions should be re-evaluated. I don’t believe in old traditions being kept “just because that is how things have been done.” I think that traditions need to be renewed and newer ones formed for our time's needs, knowledge, and consciousness. Changing Biographies and Tenses“I am writing about my father in the past tense, and I cannot believe I am writing about my father in the past tense.” (Page 67) – Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) Recently, while preparing for a re-launch of a project (the Nigerian Writers Database), I came across your bio, Caliban Jack (my nick name for Mr. Chimezie Justin Njoku). I couldn’t bring myself to change it. When another friend passed away around the time you died, I was tasked with re-writing her biography and despite clearly knowing that “was,” is for the past, something or someone that is gone and is not coming back, I struggled incoherently. I stuttered in writing until I couldn’t write anymore. I tried to leave as much “is” here and there because I so much wanted her to remain alive. It is more than a year already, and I thought I would be able to do it by now – adjust your biography. But there I sat, staring at what described your impact, unable to admit to myself or language that you are gone. How does a heart break twice?“For weeks, my stomach is in turmoil, tense and tight with foreboding, the ever-present certainty that somebody else will die, that more will be lost. One morning, Okey calls me a little earlier than usual, and I think, ‘Just tell me, tell me immediately, who has died now. Is it Mummy?’” (Page 7)
– Chimamanda Adichie (Notes on Grief) Before I wrote this review, I already knew that I wouldn’t have to convince anyone that Chimamanda is a brilliant writer. In my most recent interview with WRR, I said, “When you find a book that makes you laugh, cry, feel like you understand something, surprises you, makes you yearn, question, or learn, it is a worthy investment.” Chimamanda Adichie’s Notes on Grief is a worthy investment. When I was reading this book, especially with the knowledge of Chimamanda’s mother’s passing recently, I cried. Despite it not being my grief directly, it was heartbreaking. I was curious to know how she would make this book carry and speak of her mother; Chimamanda didn’t disappoint. I know many people may think that Chimamanda needs to write a version for her mother, but I don’t think so. My thought is that whatever she does in grieving is up to her. That she can even share this with us with a vulnerability different from what we have always learned and loved about her is enough to be grateful for. Most importantly, I think her parents, Mrs. Grace Ifeoma Adichie and Mr. James Nwoye Adichie would be proud of her and the way she wrote this book. Comments are closed.
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