#BN2021Epilogues: Onyeka Had A Great Loss this Year but She’s Hopeful for a Better 2022

This year was a bittersweet one for me. 2021 started off normal. I danced into the new year with my friends, set goals I was determined to achieve and started my weight loss journey for the umpteenth time – it was going to be a great year for me as far as I was concerned. 

Unfortunately, this outlook changed by the 2nd month of the year. I came home on a Saturday evening in late February to my dad coughing up blood. We had to get him to the hospital even though it was the middle of the night because he couldn’t breathe and had lost a lot of blood. The diagnosis wasn’t good, and the doctors couldn’t tell us what exactly was wrong with him. It all went downhill from that point – my dad never regained his strength and we lost him four months later. This loss really hit me because he had been the center of my world for the last few years. All my close friends knew how important my dad was to me. He wasn’t an easy person and most of the time frustrated the hell out of me, but he was my person and I loved him fiercely. It’s been six months since he passed, and I am still grieving. I cannot bear to hear the details of his last moments or even think about him because it causes a lot of pain. How can I move on from my grief if I cannot stand to talk or think about him? His death made me realize that life is indeed short, and we have to make the best of every day we experience on this earth. My siblings have been of great help, but I still feel so lost without him. I hope this grief eases with time.

Aside from my great loss, the year did bring some good tidings – I actually stuck to my weight loss journey this time around and reached my weight goal (yay!), I started a wonderful new job, strengthened old friendships, built new ones and amazingly achieved 90% of the resolutions I set at the beginning of the year. So, it wasn’t all bad and I believe God makes things happen the way they do because he has a plan for all of us. 

I am a little excited about 2022 – my first full year without my dad, and I look forward to more healing, the wonderful things in store for me, great time with my siblings, and my amazing friends.

Happy holidays!