CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

I spent my Sunday reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s beautiful, little ache of a book, ‘Notes on Grief’, that deals with the mechanics of grief following the death of her beloved father. She writes—

Grief is not gauzy; it is substantial, oppressive, a thing opaque. The weight is heaviest in the mornings, post-sleep: a leaden heart, a stubborn reality that refuses to budge. I will never see my father again. Never again. It feels as if I woke up only to sink and sink. In those moments, I am sure that I do not want to face the world again. 

And then later she writes—

One day I am in the bathroom, completely alone, and I call my father by my fond nickname for him – “the original dada’ and a brief blanket of peace enfolds me. Too brief. I am a person wary of the maudlin, but I am certain of this moment filled with my father. If it is a hallucination, then I want more of it, but it hasn’t happened again.

Such a courageous and honest account of the nature of grief. Wonderful. Love, Susie x