“They say grief is just love with no place to go.” Lusaka city and some parts of the country has been hit by the Cholera pandemic which has brought about a lot of sudden loss and death. Sudden death is death that happens unexpectedly, like a fatal accident, suicide or heart attack. Such deaths leave surviving loved ones with too many unanswered questions which can include anger, guilt or pain.
Sudden death removes important people in our lives who are close to us whom we did not expect to die, these can be a sister, brother, child, spouse, parent or close friend or relative. It is difficult enough to cope when someone special or close to us suddenly dies but what makes it even more difficult is when the death is due to Cholera because you cannot mourn a beloved in the normal Zambian way that entails about 3 days of people gathering at a house of mourning and sympathisers coming through to offer encouraging words coupled with the church offering solemn and comforting music.
For people who have experienced sudden death before and have moved on, they may particularly find it hard when it happens again and this may lead to a depressive view of the future. We currently have a situation where an elderly woman has lost two of her adult children to Cholera in a space of three days, now imagine the mental trauma that this elderly woman is going through.
The Cholera centres do not allow bedsitters except for when the patients are toddlers, so the mental anguish of family members as they anxiously wait every day to hear if their relatives survived the night is traumatic. Whether family members are present or not by the bedside of the Cholera patients, the fact that Cholera deaths happen fast after infection makes the death sudden and unexpected. And as earlier alluded to, what makes it more unbearable is we cannot mourn the way Zambians mourn as per our tradition. To some families who can quickly organise coffins, they do so but to most, they cannot quickly organise funds as majority of the affected are from low income earning families and so they let government handle it whereby their relatives are buried without coffins.
Unlike a death that occurs in an elderly person after a long illness, with sudden death, the world is completely turned upside down as the mind does not imagine for once that death could be inevitable and you will have no friends to mourn with you as no gatherings are allowed. The Cholera deaths are pro-longing grief as the mind easily adapts unconsciously when it watches someone go through a long illness that eventually leads to death unlike in the cases of Cholera where lives are lost in a short period.
In the Cholera deaths, a wife can be at home thinking the husband is away on his usual road trip just to be told three days later that the husband died. A mother who is a busy woman on her usual fish mongering trips returns home to be told her son died and was buried two days ago from Cholera, a man on official duties returns to find his child whom he left in high spirits was buried a day ago and for fear of raising his blood pressure on the road, they awaited his arrival to be informed. The shock children go through when their elderly grandmother who makes a living from selling vegetable at Soweto Market does not return home that evening and she always comes back with chicken pieces (heads, legs or necks) for supper and on that particular day, they walk a few blocks to their neighbours to enquire on the whereabout of their grandmother only to be informed that their ambuya was rushed to the hospital when she started vomiting at the market. It’s three days and these children have no idea where their grandmother is as the nearest clinic tells them to check at Heroes Stadium. The end of this ordeal is not a happy story as the oldest of these children is 14 years old, who now has a responsibility to look after 5 of her siblings in the absence of ambuya as these orphans where taken in after their mother fell ill and died and do not know their father.
Sudden Cholera deaths leave families devasted and vulnerable. It’s as if one is in a dream and you want to think it’s a mistake. You are unable to acknowledge the death or say goodbye in a proper manner. If left unattended to, sudden deaths often leave surviving loved ones with developments of depression, anxiety symptoms and often substance abuse to copy with the trauma and in worse situations, some people develop psychiatric disorders.
They say “time heals all wounds” but in the situation of sudden death, it’s the tears that dry and not the wound. Our government has a database of the Cholera deaths, it would be ideal if they Ministry of Health made a deliberate move to reach out to the surviving families of those who have lost loved ones due to Cholera and offer some form of group therapy/counselling which can take place in the local clinics for the close family members once the situation normalizes. “Boma iyanganepo.”
About the author
Aka Monde Mungela, is a licensed Professional Counsellor who holds a Master of Science in Counselling from the University of Zambia. She believes in the adage “a problem shared, is a problem half solved.” Speak to your pastor, church elder, elderly family member or see a professional counsellor when in need.
Email: [email protected]
