Widow Support TT – a reservoir of strength

GRIEF is a tricky and difficult process. For widows, it is no different. The feeling of losing the love of your life can make you feel hopeless and helpless.

Understanding this and the emotions involved from their personal experiences, Soraya Nanan and Ann Marie Hassanali extend their support to others at the helm of local NGO Widow Support TT.

Nanan founded the NGO around 2014, but the idea first came to her in 2009 after she lost her husband, Lincoln Nanan. They were both attorneys,
and she said they were a dynamic duo in the legal profession.

But in 2007, he was diagnosed with leukaemia and went to the US for treatment.

Despite remaining in TT, she kept her husband, her best friend, updated on her personal life and career.

“Every time I finished a matter, I would call him while walking back to my (San Fernando) office and we would just touch base. That was my routine,” she told WMN.

Eventually, the cancer went into remission (the symptoms decreased/disappeared) and he returned to TT. But the cancer later resurfaced and he was admitted to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope.

“On January 14, 2009, I visited him in hospital. The nurses told me he wasn’t taking his medication. So I said, ‘Lincoln,’ and as he heard my voice, he started to (react). I gave him the tablets and he took his water, but then I just kept hearing gurgling.

“I just got frightened because I did not know what was going on, so, I ran outside, called the nurse, the nurse called the doctors…”

Her mind immediately flashed to their then-one-year-old daughter.

“I grabbed on to one of the doctors and said, ‘Do not let me go home and tell my daughter that her father isn’t coming home.’”

After sighing deeply, she continued, “I saw the doctors walking back out after a while and I saw one of them walking to me. From the time I saw the look on their face, I knew that was it, and I started bawling.

“I can't remember how long I stayed there. I just didn't want to let go of him. We didn’t get our happily ever after.”

She was 34 at the time, and he was 35. They had been together for ten years and married for two.

She recalled the horrors of trying to manage her emotions. She felt no one else around her understood, as they had never endured anything similar.

“I had to figure out how to take care of this little baby as well as navigate through my grief.|

“I was dealing with grief to the point where I remember just lying in bed, didn't want to bathe, didn't want to brush my teeth. It was like a deep depression I was in.”

Having become the sole breadwinner, she said she forced herself to go back out to work.

“Clients were calling, they were wondering what's happening with their matters.”

She said the denial stage of grief presented itself in the form of her pretending to still call her husband after every case to update him.

“I was still talking to him on the phone, knowing he's not there. I wasn't actually calling the number, but just having that phone in my hand and talking helped, because I could not deal with not having that part of my daily routine.”

A lot of people told her she needed to push through, get over the grief and move on.

While she believes the people who said this meant well, she felt she was not getting the space to “feel her feelings.

“I realised I needed to be around people who understood what I was going through, who could say, ‘Look, I’m not judging you. I’m not telling you to just get over it,’ because it is not as easy as you think it is.

“When you're feeling that sadness inside you all the time, it's hard for you to enjoy life. I had to learn to live with my grief.”

She chose a butterfly to symbolise the NGO, which she said represents going through different stages in life.

The group hosts meet-ups, virtual support seminars and legal aid clinics, among other things, and has a WhatsApp group chat with over 50 members. It also hopes to begin hosting conferences annually.

Hassanali, the group’s vice president, said she has found healing through becoming a grief coach. Her husband, Hasan Hassanali, died on June 10, 2020 from diabetes-related complications.

“My journey as a widow has been like walking on a broken bridge. Many days, you feel like you take the next step and then you feel a retraction because that bridge seems to be cracking a little more, and you keep praying to God that you don’t fall through the cracks and you’re able to reach the rainbow at the end.”

She and Hasan were married for 24 years. They have two daughters and one son.

He died at a nursing home and she recalled how much the phone call with the news shattered her.

“I was just numb. And (telling the children) was the most difficult part.

“My son was home, when my two daughters were in Canada. So it was really a family phone call.

My son broke down and one of my daughters fainted.”

Hassanali said she, too, longed for a support group with other women who understood her pain.

“I wish no one else had to join the group after the (most recent) person to join it, because that would mean no more widows,” she said, candidly.

She said for the first year after her husband's death, she could not speak about it at all.

“And within that year, I met a lot of widows who would openly share their stories with me, not knowing that I was also a widow. And I found that through them just sharing their stories with me, it was healing me.

“ So to know I could have joined a group and continue to heal…I wanted to do so much for these women and exchange support, so I was healing through them.”

But she said sometimes it’s tough for members to find the inner strength to attend some of the sessions, which they understand.

“But we would still encourage them and be there for them. Even if they don’t want to talk, they just want to sit and drink coffee, they want to dress up, they don’t want to dress up – let’s just support each other through this journey.

“Our group is a space to be yourself and to take the next step. We literally hold each other's hands.”

She added, “When the lemons come and you make the lemonade, some days you have no sugar, some days you have a lot of sugar. But you will get through it.”

She wants widows to know they have a “reservoir of strength” within them, and the group is ready to serve.

“Each time we as women stand up for ourselves, we stand up for all women. Together, we are stronger. Together we can do much.”

Nanan and Hassanali hope to expand the group someday to support women in general and widows and promote it across the Caribbean.

Widow Support TT is on Facebook, Instagram and X. Nanan can be reached at 689-8225, and Hassanali at 685-7467.