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Strength Over Grief


There are certain moments in life, when you lose it, you can never get it back again as the way it used to be.
One of them is dealing with  the death of a dear one or with the death of someone very special to you. Consuming pain and hiding it inside heaps more hurt and emotional frustration. When death snatches someone so close to you, depending on the relationship, you feel like you can never replace such a person or sometimes you may feel like your whole world is gone from under your feet.
But grief, Sadness, death and frustration in life as supposed to happiness, Joy and the excitement that come to us are all part of the rites of passage to this life. We will all go through each of them one way or the other. Rich or poor, young and old. We may experience happiness today for example on our wedding day, or on a birth of our baby but just in contrast to that, we may experience death or sadness tomorrow.
Must we scream and curse God, the maker of this life that he has been unfair to us? I don't think so. We must cry our eyes out, miss the moments of the person dearly. But we must not let it drown us out of our humanness. This is the life we came to meet. Oxymoronic in nature. A bittersweet experience.
In December 2010, I lost my adopted grandmother, Frau Inge Suah.  She was an 82 year old German lawyer and a UN Human Rights activist. Early 2010, I had asked her to do me a big favour and ask my adopted German parents to work on bringing me back to Germany again. So after my college graduation in Ghana at the time, I could then come to Germany to work and build for myself a professional career there.
When she came back to Ghana in September that year, she called me very late at night around 9:30 pm to come immediately to the house for she had something important to tell me before anything happens to her. Ladies and gentlemen, the words my grandmother said to me forms the foundations of my life today. And I will never change them for anything. These are forever my principles.
I asked her, Oma, (German for grandmother) do you have good news for me?? You delivered my message right??
She lowered her head down and removed her glasses. No, I couldn't meine liebe (German for my dear) Kwame.  In angry voice, I started shouting and screaming on top of my voice, how could you not do this? Why? Why? I trusted you to do this for me.

Calm down my sweet boy, I did my best for you. Trust me, I did. But they think you are lazy, they think you didn't want to do much to help yourself walk or take your German lessons when you were in Germany as a boy.
So they told me they are not willing to do try again because they are very certain that you will repeat that same attitude if you are brought back there again.
I started crying hard and she did too but she controlled herself and said this to me;

Kwame, this must be a lesson to you henceforth, my sweet boy, never depend on anybody for anything in this life. Everybody has got their own demons and troubles to deal with. Never expect anybody to do anything for you, if you cannot do it all by yourself. Work hard on yourself and earn your own respect in this life. If along your journey you meet people who genuinely help you in your life, consider that a bonus to you.

Now listen carefully my sweet boy, if you are able to lift this heavy burden of always looking up to people for help off your shoulders, you will become the best man you can ever be. So take this from me, you are genius and you can handle this situation on your own. Let this be your guiding principles for life.

I left her a few hours later after some drinks.  One Friday night in December 2010, a few months after this conversation, I had a call from my father that my Oma had died all alone in her apartment in Germany. The neighbors only got to know from the pungent smell which was coming from her room. They later found out that she had died many days ago all alone before they even found out.
Till this day, I still can't get over it that I have lost and I cry everytime I think about her.

But her loss and death has also been my biggest lesson. Today, I have learnt to work so damn hard for everything and anything like it's the FIFA world cup tournament. I don't talk about my plans and actions until I do them or finish doing them.

I don't celebrate my own successes or  and achievements because from her words, I have learnt not to be complacent and arrogant for a second until everything is done. My family and friends really hate me for this, but I have become self reliant too. Meaning I try multiple times to solve my own problems and issues by myself. Honestly, I only call or ask for help, if I feel the situation is beyond me or if I have exhausted every options available by myself.

I am always super focused on achieving goals after goals after goals. I have no  goddamn time for complicency.
All this from a heavy emotional conversation I had with my grandmother before she died.
My Oma is gone but the principles in her words have never left me. I mourn her every December. But I also applaud for the "principled conversation"

Sorry for my long talk. But I hope you can learn something from a grief or loss the next time.

Kwame Sarpong

Email: kwamesarpong25@gmail.com
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