My husband died when he was forty years old. The accident that claimed his life maimed my heart. We were married for two and a half years with a one-year-old son. I cried every day for two reasons. I’d lost the pillar of my life and also the hand that would hold my son’s hand into adulthood. I didn’t know how I was going to survive the rest of my life.

At his funeral, Fiifi and his girlfriend stood by my side through it all. When I was reading my tribute to my husband and was choked with tears, Fiifi’s girlfriend, Esi rubbed her fingers at my back, encouraging me to be strong. Fiifi was my husband’s best friend. He called him brother because my husband didn’t have a biological brother.

After my husband’s funeral, Esi travelled abroad. I would meet Fiifi and tease him, “Which is worse? Dead husband or travelled girlfriend? We both don’t have them with us. Ain’t we the same?”

One day he told me he liked my strength. The fact that I could carry the burden of my husband’s demise with grace and poise. I told him it was God who gave me the strength.

At my husband’s one-year anniversary, Fiifi was there. By that time he was no longer living in the same town with me. He had relocated to Accra but he came around. After church service he sent me a message, “Can you come around this evening so we take a stroll?”

We walked through open spaces, stopping once in a while to greet known faces. We avoided obscured places because, in my mind, I didn’t want prying eyes questioning our walk together. We got to the park that separates the township into two. His house on the other side of the park while mine is on the other. I thought that was where we were going to part ways but he picked a big rock and sat down. He said, “Do you know I’ve always loved you? It stopped when you got married to my friend. I wished you well. Unfortunately, he’s no longer here with us so the love has returned.”

READ ALSO: Is This The Heaven My Husband Promised Me?

When I was a girl growing up, I picked a book from a library about a widow who fell in love with her deceased husband’s best friend. They took long walks together, trying to convince themselves that it was the right thing to do. The night they had their first kiss, the widow dreamt and saw the ghost of her husband warning her to stay away from his friend. In the morning, she quickly rushed to tell the story to her newfound love, only to meet him in the middle of the road walking to her house. They both chorused, “I saw his ghost!”

That’s the book’s title, “I saw his Ghost”

It came out of nowhere, the proposal and the story behind it. They say women know it when a man loves them but I didn’t get a hint that Fiifi loved me. He did good things for me when I was dating my husband but I took it as things he did for his best friend’s girlfriend.

I didn’t know how to respond to his proposal so I ran for shelter under his girlfriend’s name. “Are you having trouble with Esi? I can talk to her for you if you want me to.”

When I got home, in the loneliness of my heart, I thought about the proposal. I’ve had several proposals from men since my husband died. Some were willing to stay in the dark until the end of widowhood rite but I brushed them off. I had known Fii. He wasn’t a bad person. I told myself I could love him if only he could explain the situation between him and Esi very well.

He told me the truth that all was well but it was me he wanted. While he was talking about Esi and the distance and the shadow of doubt on their relationship, I was drawn to the lucidity of his words. I wanted to touch him, put my head on his broad shoulder and surrender to his will. While thinking about all that, I also thought about how the community will see it should they find out. “Will his Ghost be pleased if I say yes to him?” I asked myself.

He overstayed because of me. It had been long since someone did something because of me. On the eve of his departure, we took a stroll again. I went along with my son to water down the effect of our closeness.

In the night when we got to the park, my son was already sleeping on his shoulder. He carried him from the onset until he slept. It felt right. If my son could be at home with him then I could also be. He told me to think about his proposal. He sold me a dream. In the dream, I’d leave town to stay with him in the big city. I would have a better job. I would start all over again from somewhere new.

While giving my son back to me, we ended up hugging. I didn’t see him again the next day. He was gone.

In the book I read, their love grew so strong they went ahead and got married in a little church in town. The pastor prayed to dispel the ghost out of their lives and declared them free to be husband and wife. They went home in love but the ghost was waiting for them in their living room. He pursued them in their dreams and in their prayers. Their lives were haunted, but like how every true love is depicted in fiction, they didn’t give up. They had a child. But it wasn’t the end.

Mine had just begun. When he went back, we talked every day. Weeks later, he and Esi broke up. He said it was a mutual agreement because they realized they were holding on to nothing. He asked if I was ready. I said I was thinking about it. “It’s a yes in my heart but a no in my head.”

He came again two months later. He came because of me. He said he was going to help me jump over my doubts and say yes quickly. We met at the park, in the dark like we always did. He sat on a brick while I sat on the grass a little bit far from him. He looked like someone I already owned. He said, “When you think too much about it you won’t make a move. Just take a leap of faith and leave the rest to God.”

We argued about what others would say, we argued about morality, I blamed it on the piercing sword of society. We didn’t agree. He drew closer. We kissed. In my head, it was a yes.

He was spending only the weekend. I promised I was going to visit him the next weekend. When I went home I told my mom about it. “You loved him or you guys are playing games?” She asked. I told her I loved him and waxed lyrics about how he loved me deeply.

Mom told me it was OK to love again but society wouldn’t rest if they found out I loved the man who called my husband a brother. She advised me to take my time and be sure I was ready for the battle. “They might say you two conspired to take him out just so you could marry. Can you deal with that?”

In ‘I Saw His Ghost,’ the couple didn’t have peace. The ghost pursued them until the widow committed suicide. According to the narrator of the story, at the brink of death, the widow saw her dead husband in a white robe waiting to welcome her to the land of death.

The symbolism in the story and mine became louder after listening to what my mom said. I might not see the ghost of my dead husband but there’s another ghost I would have to fight. The voices of the people. The unforgiven perceptions of the society. What Esi would say and what my next-door neighbours would say. I could say it wouldn’t bother me. Like the widow in the story, I would go ahead and marry and later realize the ghost was bigger than I anticipated.

She Cried That Day On The Altar

I called Fii. I told him what my mom said. I lied about seeing the ghost of my husband in my dreams. I told him he was angry. He didn’t want to accept it. He thought he could push until I said yes. I didn’t. “You’d rather listen to a ghost than the living?” He asked me. “It’s scary,” I answered. Slowly, we let each other go but I was happy my heart was tested. It meant I had a heart ready to love again when the right man comes. That was fulfilling.

— Ivy

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