The Tragedy of December 14Some dates never leave you. No matter how far time carries you, they return—uninvited, sharp as shattered glass. December 14 was one of those days for Uloma. The day her world cracked open.It had started like any other. The morning sun filtered softly through the small curtain in their modest home in Okposi. Uloma had woken early, as usual, preparing breakfast while humming a tune her father used to sing during wrestling practice. The boys, still young and clumsy with their steps, clung to her wrappers as she moved between pots and plates. John kissed her on the cheek as he left for work. He had a shift at the psychiatric unit that day, and as always, he wore his white uniform with quiet pride.“I’ll be back before dinner,” he promised with that smile she loved.Those were the last words he ever said to her.Afternoon came. The sun grew harsher, and Uloma took refuge in the shade of the mango tree outside. The boys played nearby, laughing and tumbling in the dust. Then came the knock.It was urgent. Strange.A neighbor stood at the door, face grim, voice tight.“There’s been an accident.”Time stopped.She didn’t wait for details. She ran. Barefoot, wrapper barely tied. Her heart thudded against her chest like a pounding drum, her mind refusing to believe what her spirit had already sensed.At the roadside hospital in town, the hallway smelled of antiseptic and panic. A nurse she recognized avoided her eyes. Another whispered into the ears of a doctor. Whispers turned into silence. Silence turned into a sob.He was gone.Just like that.A reckles lorry driver had swerved into the wrong lane. John, on his motorcycle, never saw it coming. The impact had been instant. The life of the only surviving son of his mother extinguished on the tarred road of Mgbom Okposi. Just like that.Uloma fell to the ground, not from physical force, but from heartbreak. The kind of heartbreak that tears not just the heart, but the soul. Her cry was unlike any other. It was the cry of a young wife, barely into her marriage. The cry of a mother who now bore two boys who would never know their father. The cry of a woman whose dreams had been erased in the blink of an eye.People gathered. Mourners filled the compound. Words were spoken. Food was shared. Condolences given. But grief doesn’t obey calendars. It lingers, heavy and bitter, long after the crowd has gone.John’s mother wailed uncontrollably. “He was my only one!” she screamed. “My only son!”Uloma held her, two widows bound by a single death.And then came the questions. What will happen to Uloma now? Will she return to her father's house? Will she remarry quickly? What man would marry a woman with two sons?They said it gently, but it burned all the same.And yet, in the midst of the sorrow and pressure, Uloma did something that startled everyone: she stood tall.She held her babies. She looked to the heavens. And with eyes still red from crying, she whispered to herself, “I will not die. I will live. For them. For him. For me.”The sun still rose the next day. And so did Uloma.She began to learn what it meant to survive when everything you lived for is gone. She didn’t know how, but she knew she would. Because deep in her, something stronger than grief had begun to stir.A warrior was being born.