Our fears tend to lose their power when we bring them into the light. Sometimes, being in denial of a burden or loss makes it difficult to accept that someone we once casually reached out to, that was always available will not be anymore is enough to keep expanding the pit we feel in our stomachs.
It is uncontrollable.
Our mental health (how we feel and how others feel about us) is one of the greatest of God’s gifts, but we take it for granted. It hangs on a thread as fine as a spider’s web. And the smallest thing can make it snap, leaving the strongest of us helpless in an instant.
And in that instant; Hope is our protector and Love our relief.
Isn’t it amazing how hard we have to work at not letting our emotion trump the truth? Our thoughts left unchecked can spiral instantly and produce crippling anxiety. Especially when we receive a phone call and the blank voice on the other end of the line says those lines we never prepared for!
Who is prepared anyway?
The world we live in is full of love language that goes unspoken. Feelings are hidden behind cold tears to avoid rejection or seemingly weak appearance, it doesn’t mean that it is felt less deeply; or that separation leaves a cleaner wound behind. Its beauty and its pain are in its silence.
What does it take to express how we feel? To comfort a sick child? To ease the pathway for someone recently diagnosed? Or one in a difficult relationship? Or stepping into the shoes of an overwhelmed caretaker of a child with developmental disability? The hurting family? The passing on of a loved one?
Not saying it leaves them in isolation, while we battle with our regrets for a lifetime.
When love language cannot be spoken, only shown, then everything that makes the heart beat must be hushed. I didn’t want to be hushed. I didn’t want to be consoled. I didn’t want to be told…C’est la vie! I just wanted to yell out how much love was sifting through me at the moment of each tragedy I had encountered over the years.
‘Yinka, “Mr. G.” has gone to rest! Welcome-To-The-Club! ‘We have all lost our Dads too” and their stories began, heartbreaking, heart torturing!
There was an overwhelming feeling of warmth and emotional support as I sat facing my 4 decades-bosom-childhood-friends on the night of the WAKE inside my dad’s parlor and a complete solidarity of hope as they all held on to me the next day at Ikoyi cemetery during the burial. #ThankYouVirginiaRuthAndIfeyinwa.
*Virginia flew in from Port Harcourt, Ruth and Ifeyinwa had scrambled their way through the crazy Monday/Tuesday traffic from VGC to Lagos Island.
So, am I really ready for that club? The-No-earthly-Daddy’s club? I remember how I had panicked and fought everyone on the day of his lying-in-state. I didn’t know what got over me, but I lost my focus and literally shouted at everyone at my Dad’s place to keep dusting or cleaning his parlor, because the undertakers were bringing him into his house for lying in…
‘Oh no, He was coming back to his living room for the last time, and I was losing my mind…because only his body was present. I cried like a deranged widow. My fear was evident but my spoken love was massive. Phew!
Mourning is a strange, personal, twisted road. Especially when you lose a parent. We all expect that this will be our story; we will outlive our parents. And yet they are our origin people. For the entire 46 years I have been on earth, my Dad had been too. He was a given, a constant. And now, He’s not. The reconciliation with this new reality has been harder than I’d though it would be.
So, if you’re reading this and still struggling with a fear of unspoken feelings or still in doubt if it is okay to express it without a response. Yes! Because, our Fear is inevitable, but the proclaimed shame over it is optional. Fear is wired into our very brains, into the most primitive part of us.
And if overwhelmed with fear of expression, share it with someone you trust today and ask them to pray with you. Doing so will help them be braver about sharing their fears and feelings too. Courage is contagious.
My Healing Process:
I usually open up my office door and allow my clients (children on the spectrum) to walk up in, have a seat and rummage through my toy bags as I engage their Behavior Techs in conversation and finally shift my attention on them, always getting animated and saying…“Do you know how much I love you today? This big!! (with emphasis on BIG as my arms opens up to hug them) ‘irrespective of the behavior displayed.
And when they walk out happier or puzzled at my 1-minute sugar-high craziness, with tears in my eyes more for joy of submission and expression, I know my bottled up feelings are being expressed through the minds of these little kids gradually…
Sometimes what we need is not information or speech or a literature of the pain we already know; But consolation. Sometimes we just need to know we are not the only one going through stuff. We need not the “how-to” but the “me too” consolation.
Because we are battle-worn and tender and have already fought as hard as we possibly can for now. Let’s show our spoken-affection to someone in need of it today.
May God help us all.
PS: Big THANKS to everyone who supported me through it all. I truly appreciate it.
Yours in HOPE
Yinka.
I still clearly remember the night when my parents went out for an event…. 
The warm-natured relatives from my mother’s village in Delta State had hired a commercial station wagon named 
Thank goodness for older and notorious cousins who were very crafty in stealing top-classified family information! Last I know…they saw my Dad’s car somersault several times and crash into the edge of the reef at Bar beach! 
Today, as you are reading this…In homes and hospitals and confinement across the world, friends and family will soon gather around to usher in the New Year, beautifully decorated tables filled with warm, scrumptious food and gifts to give. Blinking lighted trees with trimmed gold ribbons! 
For some, an empty place at the table will be a painful reminder of the loved one lost or a failed relationship. 
What gives us hope today? Even with friends and loved ones dying or shutting down around us, how do we comfort them? 
Because I-have-been-there-with-you, on both sides…I know the feeling of a blurry future when sickness knocks or when a loved one is lost or when we lose a pregnancy/baby…the vacuum is so uncomfortably evident and can never be filled! 
Moving Forward With Yinka 