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For the wife of the former Vice President, Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the sudden death of her husband was one of those moments.
There are moments in life when grief is so overwhelming that even the strongest person can feel completely lost.
For the wife of the former Vice President, Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the sudden death of her husband was one of those moments.
The former Vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur had gone to the gym that day.
His wife went with him. There was no prolonged illness. No warning that the family was about to lose him.
He collapsed. He was taken for medical attention and she was told he had been stabilized.
Then, just 45 minutes later, she was told he was dead.
Years later, Mrs Amissah-Arthur says her Christian faith was one of the things that kept her from breaking completely.
“I’ve said on many interviews that if I didn’t know God, maybe I’d have gone mad when my husband died because it was so sudden,” she told Kafui Dey.
“Because it was a blow.”
The shock was so great that it affected her physically.
“In one week, I lost so much weight.”
She said the entire situation was difficult to believe.
“The thing was unbelievable.”
Her grief did not end with the funeral.
There were places she could no longer comfortably visit because they reminded her of her husband.
The gym became one of those places.
The couple used to go together, so returning there brought back memories of the man she had lost.
She eventually stopped going.
Even her home gym became a trigger.
“My husband used to go to Calvary Methodist Church in Adabraka,” she also recalled, explaining that there were places and routines associated with him that became difficult for her.
But she knew she could not remain trapped in those memories forever.
That realization became part of her healing.
She eventually began confronting the things that triggered the memories rather than running from them.
Her journey through grief also changed the way she understood death.
Before her husband’s death, she said, hearing that someone had died could frighten her.
After experiencing it herself, her perspective changed.
“I came to a better understanding of death.”
She learnt that every death is different.
“No two deaths are the same.”
She had already experienced the deaths of her father, sister and brother.
Yet she said losing her husband was different.
“I thought that I’d gone through three deaths and so that should have prepared me. Oh, my husband died. It was a different thing.”
Her experience eventually led her into bereavement counselling.
But she is careful not to portray herself as someone who has somehow conquered grief.
She understands that pain can remain even when life continues.
Her message is instead about learning to live after loss.
Faith, she says, helped her get there.
“Knowing God, being a Christian, being a believer helps.”
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