I buried my husband late last year. He was a good husband and a good father to my kid. He died a week after our fourth wedding anniversary. I was carrying our second child, a girl.

We didn’t see it coming. No one did. Albert was happy. I remember the night after our wedding anniversary. He was lying peacefully in bed and snoring gently like a baby with a catarrh. I watched him closely with a heart of gratitude knowing how long he had to travel just to be home in time for our anniversary.

It wasn’t any big celebration. We went to the hotel where we had our honeymoon. We spent the night there just to relive some moments of our honeymoon. We ate some cake and had some drinks and went to bed. The next morning, we had breakfast together at the hotel, packed our things and left for our home.

He was full of life and full of cheers. If anybody asked me, I would have proudly said, “I am the reason for his smiles because I’ve made him a good wife.” I didn’t need anybody to tell me I was a good wife. I only had to see the face of my husband and the contentment in his life to know that I’ve played my part as a helper to ease his burdens.

They say every marriage has some troubles but we didn’t have any. Yeah, there were moments we had some misunderstandings and said things we later apologized for but that was it. We didn’t have much money but we were content with what we had and always planned on what next to do secure the future of our kids. We never had major troubles—troubles big enough to take the life of a husband.

The morning when the test kit confirmed that I was pregnant, I didn’t want to tell him. I wanted to play a little hid and seek with him before giving him the news but I was so eager that I couldn’t keep it to myself. I told him, “You see the thing you and I did? Yeah, it’s bringing another baby to our home.” He gleefully asked, “The thing we did that caused you to moan and whine?” I said, “Go away! who moaned and whined?”

We laughed. He congratulated me and called me “born two”. The only time “Born two” had sounded so right in my ears. He said, “If this one is a boy, we are done.” I was hoping it wasn’t a boy so we do it again and have a third.

When he came from work that day, he didn’t even eat. He said he was too tired and wanted to sleep early. He bathed, helped the kid to do her homework and went to bed around 8pm. I stayed a little bit late and went to bed around 11pm, by then, our little girl was already sleeping.

I remember I opened my eyes later at dawn and realized he wasn’t sleeping in bed with me. I didn’t give it too much thought because he could be anywhere. I turned on my other side and continued sleeping. I didn’t open my eyes again until I heard the first knock on my door. I lifted my head, looked around and realized my husband wasn’t in bed. The knock got louder and very aggressive. The person kept shouting my name, “Sister Nneka, come out and see something. Your husband, come and see what your husband has done!”

I rushed out of bed, put some clothes on opened the door. “I screamed, “What has he done?” The one knocking held my hand and started pulling me along. On our way, I saw a lot of people rushing to the same place we were rushing to. I kept asking her, “What has happened to my husband? She kept pulling me until we got to the scene where my husband had hung himself. I swear if she told me my husband had hung himself, I wouldn’t have gone there to watch him.

I knew my husband. I knew the kind of man he was and how he became my pride. It’s very sad that the last image I have of him is him dangling on a ceiling joist of an uncompleted building. I couldn’t watch. Immediately I saw him foaming on the mouth and dangling up there, I threw myself on the floor. I couldn’t look at him the second time. I kept wailing and wailing and wailing until I had no tears left.

How could he do that? What could drive a happy man to end his life? Why didn’t he talk to me about what he was going through? The moment before he took his life, did he think about me and the baby I was carrying? Was he scared? What was his last wish for us?

I had no answers to these questions. People leave a note behind when they do this but my husband didn’t. He left us on a wild-goose chase to find what was it that caused him to take his precious life. And to date, all we have about his death are speculations. “Maybe he was owing somebody?” “Maybe, It was from his work. He might have squandered some money and they were after him.” “Maybe it was depression.” Maybe, it was his demons that caused him to end it.” “Maybe….”

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The man of my life died and left a ‘maybe’ in his place. And the sad thing is, when he was alive, he didn’t show any signs of all those things that started with “Maybe.” So I concluded, “Maybe he was tired about something but the man in him had so much pride that he couldn’t break down and cry in my arms. I would have told him, “Dear, everything is alright. Let begin again tomorrow. Let’s start afresh and build again whatever was broken.”

But he didn’t say a word.

Some times I try to forget about him and move on but my three-year-old daughter would hear the sound of a car engine and rush outside screaming, “My daddy is coming, my daddy is coming!” When she realizes it’s not her daddy, she’ll run back to me and ask, “When is daddy coming back?”

Tell me, how do I move on? And how do I make her understand that daddy is never coming back? If I can move past the hurt, my daughter has to move past “Daddy is coming and accept the reality.”

But I’ve always been grateful to my parents and the family of my husband. They’ve been my strength when I didn’t have any left and they keep assuring me about the ultimate healing that time would bring.

So I will wait and pray.

—Nneka, Nigeria

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