I Think My Wife Deserves A Better Mother Than She Got

It was April 2020. The world was on its knee. You turn the TV on, Covid. You turn the radio on, Covid. You couldn’t go out. You couldn’t hug a friend. You couldn’t hold the hand of a friend. The reason was Covid. I was in the US. I had been there for only a year, looking for greener pastures. Our marriage was two years old. No child because we were not living together. I was always lonely, longing for home. To be closer to my wife and the people who mattered in my life. Life was hard here because the death toll was going up every day. I was on the phone with my wife one evening when she said, “I’ve been experiencing some sharp pains in my abdomen recently. It doesn’t last long. It comes and goes within some minutes.” I said, “It’s a sign. You have the thing. Go and check”

It was a joke. We both knew abdominal pain wasn’t part of the symptoms. We laughed about it because we could. But it started getting worse. She complained about it often and my advice was always that she should go to the hospital. She didn’t take my advice. She spoke to her mother about it and her mother prescribed some herbal drugs for her. There were herbs she ought to drink. There were herbs she ought to bath and there were others she had to take through rectal absorption. I will call and ask her, “How is it going?” She would tell me, “I’m seeing improvement. Things are getting better.” 

At some point, she stopped complaining about the pain. The last time she talked about it she said everything was gone for good and she was as fit as a fiddle. She was fit but the world was still suffering. We were still working from home. We couldn’t travel and we still couldn’t hug a friend. I yearned for home but the borders were close. We couldn’t travel. The whole Covid thing threw our plans off balance. We were making plans to resettle in the USA. I would go first, work for a year and later find a way to bring my wife here to join me. Everything was going according to plan until the pandemic hit. 

So when we talked on the phone, we talked about regrets and the failures of our grand scheme. She was sad about things but I tried to instill hope in her, “Dear you don’t have to despair. What we see now would go away soon. The world would heal and the two of us would find a way to be together. It’s not lost yet. As far as we have life, we would work on our dreams and make things work for us.” Her question was always this, “But when? How long? We don’t even know when this would go away.” My assurance was always the same, “Just have faith that everything would be alright.”

Early 2021 she started complaining again, “Sammy, the pain. It has come again. This time it’s worse. It comes and stays for days. It feels like severe cramps. The one I used to go through when I was having my menses. It’s hard to sleep or eat or do anything when it comes.” I will respond, “Efua, go to the hospital. See the doctor and know what is causing the pain. Don’t wait till it gets out of hands before you see the doctor.” She didn’t listen to me. She listened to her mother and continued administering the local herbs. When it got worse, she went to the hospital. After a series of scans, she was given some drugs that should help ease the pain and heal what she was going through. 

We were building a house together. That building project started when I was in Ghanan with her. The company I was working with gave us the land and we decided to develop it so we can move there as soon as possible. When I got here and started working, everything I made went into the building. I wanted her to complete the building as soon as possible so she could move into it. We planned to rent it out when she finally gets the opportunity to join me here. The building wasn’t complete, but we made the down rooms ready so she could move into it. When she was moving into the house, she went there with her mother. She needed a companion. I didn’t have a problem with that.

But her mother gave her bad advice concerning her health and for some reason, she always listened to her mom. One early morning in the US, she called my phone. She couldn’t talk properly. You could feel the pain in her voice as she spoke. She said, “It came again. Last dawn. It was so severe I thought I was dying. Mom had to rush me to the hospital and I got admitted immediately I got here.” She was struggling to talk. I could feel the pain she was going through. The softness of her voice said it all. I told her, “Just relax. You’ll be fine. Hospital is always better. I hope they cure it once and for all.” 

The next call I had was from her phone but the voice wasn’t hers. It was her mother. She was crying. Wailing actually. “Your wife is gone.” She said. I screamed, “Gone where?” “Sammy, She’s gone ooooo, Efua is gone. How could she do this to us? She’s gone…not too long ago. I went home in the morning to prepare food for her. When I got to the hospital her bed was empty. Blah…blah…blah…yada…yada…yada. I lost concentration. I couldn’t follow the story. I was lost for a moment—my mind, my heart, my being. Everything became numb. Everything around me went quiet. I couldn’t hear a thing. I was in a swirling bubble. I knew it was going to burst at any moment but it kept moving—swirling. Shrouding me from the noise around. 

I said, “No it can’t be true. I spoke to her not too long ago. How can she die? No, she can’t. My wife can’t die. Never. Tell the doctor to wait. Call a pastor and let him pray for her. She’s sleeping or something. She would wake up. No, she can’t die. My Efua can’t die.” Denial. I was crying. Wailing actually. It felt like my world has come to an end. I don’t even know when I cut the call. I cried all day. I thought about our plans. Our dreams. “We didn’t have a child. God, why?” I started regretting leaving her all alone. “I should have stayed with her. If I was there, she would have gone to the hospital right from the start. This wouldn’t have happened.”  

Slowly, it dawned on me that my wife was gone. How ephemeral life can be? Today we are here, dreaming of dreams. Tomorrow we are gone, leaving our dreams behind. Everything we have lives on but we, the owners of things, die. How does that make sense? 

Her funeral was in November 2021. I was in Ghana. Everything I saw reminded me of her. I couldn’t stay in our house. I was scared of those haunting memories. I saw her car. That grey Hyundai used to be mine but it was hers when I left. I could imagine her seated behind the steering wheels. I was sitting next to her. Those were the days I was teaching her how to drive. “Step on the accelerator slowly. Yeah, you’re doing great. Now step on the break. Nooo, don’t step on the break like that. You don’t approach a break with abruptness. Just slowly, like you’re stepping on the accelerator.” Those words came back to me. It was one of the moments that got us connected. I had a few weeks to leave Ghana. She said she was going to miss me. I said the same thing. I had to teach her how to drive before leaving. She was a slow learner but she picked the tricks eventually. She was gone and gone for good. 

She was buried on Saturday. On Sunday we went to her church for Thanksgiving. The whole family—her family and mine. After church that day, her mother told me, “We would like to meet you tomorrow. Would you be available?” 

All the while I was in Ghana, I was living in my parents’ house. But that day, I went to our house to meet my wife’s mother. She came with Efua’s elder sister and brother. I didn’t know their mission but I figured it was going to be about the funeral and how it went. When they got to the compound of the house I saw them from the inside. Efua’s brother went closer to the car and looked inside. I heard my mother-in-law saying, “If you’re eyeing that car then forget it. It’s already mine.” I thought I didn’t hear her correctly until they came inside and took their seat. She started, “God being so good, we’ve been able to bury our royal without any hitches. We are here today to ask you to declare the properties she had so we can take what belongs to us.” 

I was shocked! I was trying to hide the shock but I couldn’t. My face might have been able to hide it but my posture couldn’t. “I asked, “Properties?” She answered, “Yeah, I already know that the car outside there belongs to her. This building too, because I was with her all the way when she was putting it up. You were outside of the country. Maybe you contributed but I know she did it herself. I don’t know which other things she had. There could be a piece of land somewhere…” Her sister added, “Or a bank account somewhere…” Her brother also chipped in, “Or even an insurance policy.” Her mother continued, “We want to know everything so we can take them away. We are a family still but you and I know for a fact that the thread that used to connect us is broken so we have to part with what belongs to us.”

I didn’t even know what to tell them. I was lost and looking for myself.

I told them, “We buried my wife less than forty-eight hours ago and you’re here talking about her properties?” Her brother retorted, “We don’t know when you’ll go back abroad. So it’s better we talk about it now before you leave or you’ll give us another day and we’ll come back.” They didn’t even understand the depth of my feelings. I said, “Whatever my wife has belongs to me. I may choose who to give them to and I’m glad to know who not to give them to. There’s nothing to give. If you may excuse me.” 

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I’d been hiding my feelings since they came but I couldn’t any longer. I started pointing them to the door. Of course, they fought back. Her brother: “I’m a man just like you. I won’t sit for you to take everything from us. I know my sister and how hard she worked while you were chilling abroad. Even when she was sick, you couldn’t send money for her upkeep. She’s dead now and you think you’ll keep her properties? You lie bad.” Her mother was also shouting on the side. Her sister was just there looking around. When they stepped out, I closed the main gate and left them there.

My dad couldn’t believe it when I told him but somehow, he was sympathetic towards them. He said, “If you can, give everything to them. Maybe it would replace the loss they’re feeling.” I said, “No. They’ve disrespected my wife. They’ve shamed her memories. They’ll get nothing though I don’t have a need for those things they are talking about.” Days later, they came to my parents’ house talking about the same thing. My dad sat there and listened to them but I was far gone. A week later, I left Ghana. They don’t have my contact so they keep bothering my parents. 

As I write this, I don’t even know how much my wife left in her bank account and how much her SSNIT and other social benefits are worth. I’m her next of kin. I didn’t even bother to do her death certificate to be able to retrieve these things. It will sit and rot for all I care. They should continue barking for the properties of the dead. They won’t get anything. My wife is dead. They are alive. They should go and make their own properties.