The Heaviness of Grief: Flipping the Pages of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'Notes on Grief'

Even when the late Prof. James Nwoye Adichie was kidnapped in 2015, death only waved at him and humbly went away, as the American Ambassador, due to his dual citizenship, did all he could to ensure his safety, unlike the Nigerian government. However, like an uninvited guest, death announced itself again to the Adichies during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

On June 7, a fruitful Zoom meeting was had. During it, the family discussed what to do in order not to lose ancestral lands to a billionaire. But within 72 hours, they received the shock of their lives: Prof. Adichie, father of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, developed an illness and, by the third day, June 10, he had become a corpse, as his own children would constantly proclaim.

Chimamanda Ngozi became emotionally distraught and, in her distraction, sort of denied the realities of death — losing his love — Prof. Adichie, issued a coy warning to his sister Uche, who relayed the news of his demise to some family members: “No. Don’t tell anyone, because if we do, then it becomes true.”

Unlike other factors that cause grief, it becomes everlastingly painful when death is behind one’s grief, because for whatever reason, the person lost cannot be brought back to life again. Chimamanda, under this pretext, coined her own definition of ‘grief’, which isn’t far-fetched, believing that “Grief is a cruel kind of education,” exhibiting itself through uneven mourning, unbridled anger, excruciating pain, bitterness, and its own language — failure!

Grief brought a new revelation to the Adichies, which the author, Chimamanda, describes as a part of laughter in grief. To them, laughter means not just doing away with anxiety or stress, but forging a communion together — learning from their petty lapses — and calling each other to account. But now, “laughter becomes tears and becomes sadness and becomes rage.”

Upon looking at more aged people than their late father, Chimamanda’s grief exacerbated. But one thing is certain: death will come to each of us when our time is due. Some may die right after birth, others after suffering an acute illness, and even some after severe illness and fatal accidents won’t die. Instead of living as though death is far away, we need to know that death will definitely come to us when we least expect it. So, let's prepare, all of us.

How to sway herself from the pains of grief — fighting nihilism, a cycle of thinking there’s no point, became a problem. Death doesn’t leave hopefulness after its visit; it’s full of despair and disappointment. Chimamanda couldn’t wrap her thoughts around people who freely walk around after losing a beloved.

The inevitable is much felt if one of your loved ones is snatched. If not, you may think there’s nobility in sending condolences. She would now have to yearn for sleeping pills and even cry while taking her bath. To refrain from despair, however, she would have to repeat the refrain of Chuks, “There is grace in denial.”

Furthermore, age, in the face of grief, is irrelevant. Chimamanda posits that although their father was almost ninety years old, they won’t say that grieving is needless because “not how old he was but how loved.”

The author tells readers of the need to create indelible memories with beloved ones. Chimamanda narrates how, pretending to be a Nigerian journalist, she asked her father about his courtship with their mother. And how pomegranate juice became a standing joke: when her parents visited her at Yale and she asked her dad if he’d love to taste some pomegranate juice, he retorted, “No, thank you, whatever that is.” And how tolerant he was to them, even when he rose to become deputy vice chancellor of the University of Nigeria in the 1980s. When Chimamanda, “with the haughtiness of a seven-year-old,” said she wanted her father’s driver to take her to school, her father calmly said, “He is my driver, not your driver.”

Prof. Adichie was the anchor that held Chimamanda; a woman of valor, a literary goddess; an award-winning author, essayist, poet, novelist, and influential speaker. Chimamanda narrates how he’d pat her back and give her morale before she took the GCE exam, and how he said, as she stalled in solving a long equation, “Yes, you’re getting there. Don’t doubt yourself. Don’t stop.” The result of that is why she is a firm Evangelist in the Philosophy of ‘always trying’.

More so, he’d go a long way to instill discipline and confidence in her after laughing at their maths teacher who couldn’t solve a basic problem: not that the man wasn’t a good teacher because he couldn’t solve it, “but because he didn’t say ‘he didn’t know.’” Here, Chimamanda would learn how to confidently say ‘I don’t know’ because learning is never-ending. And for every learned person, there is one who’s more learned. To say ‘I don’t know’ is part of knowledge.

The author spends a few pages talking about the nuances of grief and how culture plays a role. That people grieve differently; well, it’s not a disorder. But she finds it a bit uncomfortable that even when she was still sinking and stinking of despair, Igbo culture flexed its muscles of forceful communitarianism. The need for clearance; in this case, they must ensure they’ve paid dues: age-grade dues, town union dues, village and clan dues, “otherwise, the funeral will be boycotted.” And for ‘most Igbo people, to be deprived of a proper funeral is an almost existential fear,’ a belief still upheld across Africa.

In order to comply, as the late Prof. Adichie would have wanted, even after the Biafra war, he organized a belated funeral for his late father who was buried in an unmarked grave. So, Chimamanda and her siblings went about and fulfilled the terms of the long list: the many coolers of rice, gifts of goats or chickens to be presented, cartons of beer, and all. Chimamanda looked at the lists askance. That which looked like a ‘bloody party.’

Some widows also came with their demands, cultural entitlements. They requested that the widow, Grace Ifeoma, would have to be shaved bald. “Nobody ever shaves men bald when their wives die; nobody makes men eat plain food for days; nobody expects the bodies of men to wear imprints of their loss,” Chimamanda remonstrated. However, their mom wanted to succumb, so they retreated their nuances.

Chimamanda assures the African people that she wasn’t taking up arms against Igbo culture; “there’s much I find beautiful in Igbo culture, and much I quarrel with, and it is not the celebratory nature of Igbo funerals that I dislike, but how soon they have to be. I need time. For now, I want soberness.”

There’s no better way to end this summary than by explicitly stating the love that existed between Chimamanda and her late father was indescribably beautiful. So much so that her cousin Oge would oftentimes say to her: “You should just go and marry your father,” mockingly. In her words: “One of my favorite things in the world was just to hang out with my father.” That notwithstanding, grief came her way!