The Woman Who Refused to Break

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Some years ago, Madam Lydia lost her brave husband and the day her husband died, the whole compound, including the community went quiet.

It wasn't the normal quiet of the night. It was the heavy quiet that sits on one's chest when nothing can be done but quietness.

Her husband had been known as a driver who transports people and their goods to places. Nothing stable, nothing fancy about him. Even when he returns home, he does return home with bread, hope, and laughter. Hope left the house with him, for three days that malaria took him.

People in his community and even those who know him, came with sympathy and left with advice.

"You must be strong and courageous."
"It's only For that knows the best."
"You will be healed with time."

But time can't buy someone food.

My landlord cannot accept taking patience as rent.

Madam, Lydia has two children who still believe that their father will walk on a day with sweets in his pocket. The first week after the burial of her husband, Madam Lydia sold most of her wrappers. In the second week, she sold her small raid. Going further by the third week, the house began to feel hungry.

Her daughter asked her one morning, *"Mama, are we playing fasting?". Madam Lydia smiled and said yes to her daughter.

On that afternoon, she tightened her scarf and went to the market. She went with a small tray of sachet water on her head. Her legs shook with shame more than weight. She had never hawked before in her life.

The people that she knew and thought they will help her, looked away.

Some of them pretended not to see her.

But a stranger who saw her went to her and bought four sachets of water and paid for twenty.

He said quietly, "You can keep the change."

That night, her children are rice. A small quantity of rice, with fish.

While her children slept off, she cried not from sadness, but from relief.

Yeah became two. Days turned into months. Then a small cooler. Then a roadside stand. Her hands hardened. Her pride softened. Her spirit refused to die as she became courageous.

Her compound people began to greet her differently. Not with pity but with respect.

After some years, Madam Lydia's son got admission into secondary school. Her daughter spoke English more fluently.

A lot of people started asking her, how she survived with her children and she replied, I do survive because I have decided that I would not break down in tears or keep mourning my late husband forever.