3 out of 4 stars
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A Widow’s Window is a non-fiction memoir written by Hope Ifeyinwa Nwakwesi. It chronicles her experiences as a young widow suddenly faced with the challenge of single-handedly raising her children after the sudden death of her husband. I liked the pun in the words ‘Window’ and ‘Widow.’ The death of a spouse makes a woman a widow and creates an opening in her life (a window) through which the world can see her pain and loneliness. She lists the five most dreadful emotions associated with widowhood as fear, pain, grief, shame, and loneliness. She uses some of these emotions to describe the change to widowhood in this quote which I found heart-rending:
The author’s personal experience makes her a suitable writer of this memoir. Readers can identify with her easily and know that her writing is borne out of her experience of a similar pain, and not theory. She shares some painful scenarios she encountered as a widow and a lone parent, how she felt, and how she handled her challenges with a positive attitude. By adding real life excerpts of the widowhood experience of other women, the content of the book is richer and the messages in the book come alive.At the news of the death of the husband, his woman’s life takes a dramatic turnaround – she automatically wears a crown crafted in fear, decorated by pain, to which the world in joy colors with shame and fixing it on grief as the title is bestowed to be ‘widow’.
She advocates that society should not add more pain to the widow’s already distorted emotions by enclosing her in what she termed the “Corset of the Hood.” She advocates that widows should strive to develop inner strength through prayer despite the alienation, segregation, disregard, and abuses they are subjected to.
Chapter two was my favorite chapter because it spoke to me on a personal level. She talks about all the questions that accompany bereavement which she calls the ‘if, why and how.’ She advocates that one must first destroy these questions in order to move on. We should strive to trust God in spite of our pain and confusion in times of grief. Chapter three contained this profound statement:
The book is full of apt scriptures from the Bible to buttress the points the author makes in the book. She combines poetry and prose in her writing. A nice poem in the book is The Widow’s Creed on page 18. She uses a lot of similes and metaphorical statements to illustrate the dark season of life that grief brings.True healing in time is all about feeding your faith by starving your fear and refusing to grieve no matter the pain.
I recommend this book to anyone seeking healing after the loss of a friend or a close relative. It is written from a Christian perspective but can bring encouragement to anyone because most of the principles advocated here are universal. I feel the book would have benefited from another round of editing to eliminate some grammatical errors and improve the structure of the book so I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.
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A Widow's Window
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