By Ogova Ondego
Published March 6, 2023
Though it is clear that nothing on earth is permanent, the shift from wife to widow is heartbreaking.
This is the sobering message from Journey Through Bereavement: The Life of a Widow, a 260-page book on widowhood by Nkita Tshiama Arao.
The happiest time in a woman’s life is the day she marries and the saddest time is when she loses her husband, Arao contends.
“I have become acquainted with pain, despair and grief,” Arao, who lost her husband in 1999, writes. “Through the experience of other ladies … I have come to understand the various kinds of loss.”
Arao writes that once a wife is widowed society looks at her not just as a person to be pitied but also as a substandard human with questionable moral behaviour.
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Based on the writer’s personal experience as a widow and research among widows and pastors in Ngong Hills district on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, this is an invaluable reference manual on widowhood across Africa as it draws examples on death and its effect on widows from diverse cultural norms.
Among the subjects addressed in the book are stages of grief such as anger, bargaining and acceptance; overcoming grief; challenges of widows after the death of a husband such as funeral arrangements, the shock of seeing a fresh grave, financial constraints, sleeping problems, and changing business papers; cultural implications such as widow inheritance, succession and inheritance and dying without a will; biblical teaching about widowhood such as remarriage, advantages of singleness and church’s support of widows; empowering widows economically and socially; tackling life as a young widow with children or older widow; and dealing with loneliness.
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Arao says a friend of hers asked her how she copes with not having sex in her widowhood.
“I was very frank with her that after the death of my husband I prayed earnestly to God to remove the feeling of wanting to have sex from my mind. It has worked very well with me,” Arao writes, saying that the friend ‘then talked about a disease which comes when one does not have sex’.
“I had never heard of that before and could not comment on that. Can someone tell me if such a disease exists,” Arao poses to you, the reader. “I am convinced that God will not send me or any other widow a disease for not having sex.”
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Arao, who was born in Congo-Kinshasa and attended university in USA before marrying a Kenyan, is a career teacher and education administrator who holds a Bachelor’s (Mathematics and Psychology) and Master’s (Education Administration) degrees from USA. Arao was a teacher of Mathematics at State House Girls School and Academic Registrar at Daystar University, Presbyterian University of East Africa and Riara University, all located in Nairobi.
Hey, why am I telling you all this instead of asking you to buy your own copy of Journey Through Bereavement: The Life Of A Widow for Sh2000 and read it for yourself?
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