On Loss, Grief, and Recovery - Hairam Iwnas
Content notice: This story contains mention of suicide.
Hairam Iwnas
‘One day, the thing you dread the most will happen and you will not die. Only then will you start living’
You had chuckled when you saw the tweet as you scrolled mindlessly through Twitter that day. You thought how true it was because so many things you dreaded had happened to you, and yet, here you were, as stout as ever, living. Or so you thought. But weren’t you living? I mean, you had a job about which, when you talked, you would puff your shoulders and speak in a way that made people look at you with admiration. They would say, ‘Ahh, small Madam’.
You would laugh dryly and tell them that you were trying. You hoped they couldn’t see how much you hated your job. You hated it so much but consoled yourself that it paid your bills. I mean, you lived in a one-bedroom apartment so spacious you felt like an ant in a cardboard box, and whenever you brought someone home, they would go, ‘hmmm, all this space for a smallie like you abi it’s because of woman’.
You loved that you had so much space and privacy in this house compared to your last house where your neighbours would open their windows to spy on you whenever you brought a woman home. They would gossip about how you were a lesbian. You had to be. After all, they had never seen a man come to visit you before.
You could smoke weed in the bedroom in this house, move to the living room and finish off in the bathroom. So, weren’t you living?
You were living until the thing you dreaded the most happened, and you stopped living. You simply floated through the day without noticing anything or anyone. You became a distant shadow, and people who knew you said you had changed. You didn’t care, you were exhausted. You had little patience with anyone and had to stop yourself from screaming at people sometimes.
Passersby on the road who didn’t move out of your way quickly enough got the stink eye from you, the bus driver who said you would have to wait for him to find change got the words ‘fucking idiot’ muttered under your breath as a response, the beggars at the bus-stop who held on to your cloth and looked at you with hungry eyes you feared they would tear you apart.
You screamed at the agbero who grabbed your hand and said he’d like to fuck you. You turned and looked at him dead in the eyes with all the hate in your soul and told him you hoped he would be crushed to death by a truck and if he as much as touched you again, you’d break his head. He looked at you in shock and you wondered if it was the look in your eyes or the way you spat out those words that made him slink away.
You screamed at your nephew and niece as they threw your things around the house, tore up your books, tumbled a hundred times on their wobbly feet, and cried when you refused to hand over your phone to them to be destroyed. You were filled with remorse when your niece looked at you with teary eyes and buried her face in the pillow sobbing. So you kissed them both and apologised to them, telling them you had a headache and your head was spinning. You didn’t mean to shout you said, and could they please stop screaming and destroying your things? They looked at you like you had lost your mind and you were ashamed of yourself. How could they understand? They were only 15 months old.
You didn’t know what you had become when you looked in the mirror and a pair of dead eyes stared back at you. You couldn’t recognise yourself. The face looked familiar and you wondered whose it was. Funny how reflections change.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Even with the pills, you were barely getting 5 hours of shut-eye. When you did, you were plagued with nightmares about death and dying, coffins, and ghosts, and when you woke in the morning, your stomach churned with bile. Whenever you didn’t take the pills, you would lie awake all night tossing and turning in bed, replaying all the sad events of your life until your brain was so exhausted that the god of sleep had mercy on you and you were able to close your eyes for a miserable 2 hours of sleep filled with broken dreams.
You weren’t living, you told yourself as you boarded the bus to work every morning, face drawn and eyes sunk far in the back of your head. Eyes that no longer had any light. You hated feeling this way and prayed silently to any god who would listen to make it stop because you were tired of it all. You wondered what it would feel like to throw yourself in front of a moving truck. You fixated on this thought so much that it began to look appealing until you remembered that your mother had died in a car crash. So the idea vanished, leaving an unpleasant taste in your mouth, and your phobia of trucks returned.
You searched the internet religiously for a painless way to do it. The only way that appealed to you was the pills that helped you get some sleep at night. The replies on Reddit said you’d need a lot of them, so you bought them. You went to different pharmacies to avoid anyone asking too many questions or raising suspicions. You had your pills ready, and all that was left was to figure out the best time to do it. Nighttime was the best so that as you settled into bed, you would rest forever. What a brilliant idea!
So after work that Friday night, you stood by the kitchen sink, a handful of pills and a bottle of water in the other. Tears streamed down your face, but your hand wouldn’t move. Why couldn’t you do it? Bloody coward! You can never do anything, can you? But wait! How would they find the body? That was the part you hadn’t thought about. Your sister had her problems and two energetic toddlers and only came to visit when she could. You barely saw your neighbours as everyone was always either at work or shut up indoors. You reckoned you’d be food for the maggots long before you were found. The thought was too unpleasant, and you couldn’t imagine yourself locked up in your own house, wasting away to be discovered one or two weeks later.
So you put the bottle of water down and leave the pills on the kitchen countertop, ashamed of yourself for even thinking of doing something like that in the first place. How could you, who had been the star child all your life, with your ‘perfect’ life to the world outside, entertain such thoughts? You who had in the past turned up your nose at people who took such paths? “Weaklings”, you had called them, as you wondered what could drive people to make such choices. What a fine-looking high horse you were riding on. Bloody hypocrite! you spat silently at yourself.
The next morning, your head bowed in defeat you dump the pills in the trash and apologise to yourself for even thinking of hurting yourself. You will be better, you vow. Weren’t you resilient? You remind yourself of worse things that had happened, like when you were at rugby practice in your second year at the university. It was a warm sunny day in England during spring, and your teammate’s six-year-old kept dragging you onto the pitch to race her. You obliged even though you didn’t want to because no matter how hard you tried that day, your bones felt cold and your body heavy like lead. After a few minutes of running after the feisty child, you sat down tired and out of breath. Even when your teammates called to you to come down for sandwiches, your stomach turned at the sight of the food. You decide to head home, and as you lay under the covers, head banging and your body on fire, you notice the dread in your spirit. You close your eyes but are unable to fall asleep despite feeling worn out. You wonder why you were feeling so poorly until the call came in, and it all made sense. Your sister had died that morning, and so did you.
You reminisce about the unfortunate events of your life, and you notice a pattern. After each incident happens, you go under the sea drowned. You fight for your life but always emerge from the depths of sorrow. You are amazed at how you managed to miss the strength you have shown over the years. So much courage and resilience you had shown even when it seemed like your heart had broken into a thousand tiny pieces and it was impossible to put the shards together, you remained.
‘I’m so silly’. You chuckle as you open the kitchen cupboard over your head which had been untouched in weeks, and bring out the coffee jar. You put a kettle on the gas to boil and scoop some coffee into a teacup. You can’t decide if you should add milk to your coffee, so you settle for sugar instead. Coffee in hand, you head to your room which has been your sanctuary these last months. You love your room for the coolness that never leaves, no matter the season. The entire house was so cold and had a peaceful chill you had to wear socks and sweaters sometimes, and the women you brought home usually never wanted to leave. You open the curtains and a rush of cool air hits your nostrils as sunlight spills into the room reminding you that you are alive and can still feel. You raise the cup of coffee to your lips, and the hot liquid burns your parched throat as you sigh. Oh, how you have missed moments like this, standing by the open window drinking coffee while Kygo’s tropical hits blare from the speaker beside your bed.
Then you remember the tweet because you had retweeted it a few days before. So you pick up your phone and open your Twitter app. You tap on the tweet, and it leads you to the original poster’s page.
You quote the tweet. ‘ One day, the thing you dread the most will happen, and you will not die. At least not physically, but you will die a thousand other deaths. Only then, will you start living.’
You smile as you drink your bitter-sweet coffee, for you have started living.
If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide, we encourage you to reach out to these helplines:
Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative - 08091116264 - mentallyaware.org
Nigerian Suicide Prevention Initiative Counselling Centre - 08062106493 - 08092106493
Human Development Initiative - 0808551376 - hdinigeria.org
Hairam’s mind is a mangled and beautiful mess of thoughts that they struggle to verbalise, so they put it in writing. Books and music are their safe space and provide an escape from the chaos that exists in their world. A perfect day for Hairam starts with a cup of Cranberry tea. Connect with Hairam on Twitter.
The stories on Sisterly HQ are meant to reflect an individual's experience and do not necessarily reflect Sisterly HQ's point of view. Sisterly HQ in no way encourages illegal activity or harmful behaviour.