Personally, its been heart-wrenching for me to see Nigerians condemn the decision of the brother of late Meimuna Anyene's decision to go ahead with his wedding after his mother, sister, her husband and her four beautiful children and other relatives died in the ill-fated Dana Air crash which occurred on June 3, on their way to Lagos to attend his wedding which was scheduled for June 9. Now, that's a huge blow to anybody. Most of the victims were burnt beyond recognition, we have no clue if the bodies of his family members were found to be given a proper burial. He is a muslim and traditionally muslims bury the dead within 24 hours. We all have different belief systems and cultures. We need to know where to draw the line in our criticisms.
In the pictures from the wedding, one could see the eyes of the couple really red, obviously from a lot of crying. I don't even want to imagine how much tears they must have shed. Life has not been fair to this family. When life hits you with a huge blow like this case, you have to look for some sense of normalcy to cling to or some kind of state of denial to sail through or you could fall into a pit of depression.
The wedding was toned down and prayers were held for the souls of the departed before the wedding fatiha and reception took place. People criticised the couple for smiling in photographs but those smiles were shielding so much pain. We have no clue what this family is going through, unless we have walked in their shoes. We, of course feel some of their pain but it's not in our right by any means to dictate how they grieve and what they should do under this tragic circumstances that befell them. The poor couple were looking forward to a joyous wedding day with all their family members who had already travelled or made travel plans to be at the wedding .
We need to know where to draw the line, we can only sympathise with them and pray for the souls of the departed. This family is going through a whole lot already and for people to start calling the groom, heartless, mean and disrespectful to the dead is simply over- stepping our bounds. We are only adding to the grief of this family. We couldn't have loved his family more than he did. In my opinion, we have been unfair to this family. Ndako lost all these beautiful people in his life but when he got married to his beautiful wife he gained a sister and a mother and most of all a friend to help him go through this most traumatic time of his life. Just maybe, this will give him some semblance of happiness in this trying time. We tend to spew words out of our mouths or write things before we think about them. We cannot criticise him for going ahead with his wedding six days after he lost family members if he was mentally and physically able to go ahead with his wedding. Whether he was wrong or not to have gone ahead with his wedding should not have come up for discuss at all in the first place.
Ultimately, how this family can find happiness again should be our priority if we are so concerned about them. Hopefully, their marriage and as God blesses them with kids of their own will help them in the healing process and it's going to be difficult for them to find some kind of closure in this tragedy. The fact that they went on with the wedding does not mean they have so soon forgotten that they are mourning, the wedding is just a few hours event but the happy married life that they hope for is something they have to work on for the rest of their lives and in the memory of all those who died. The memory of the dead will remain with them for the rest of their lives and the tears will never go away because as they remember their loved ones, the tears will still flow but hopefully with some smiles for the good times they shared with the departed. So let's just let them grieve and heal as best they can.HML to them!
Culled from Life & StyleSavvy with Susan Ikhine Column, CityPeople Magazine
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