CLOSURE.

There's a cue from an award-winning movie titled Dry and a TV series titled Jenifa's Diary. I know this is really very mainstream, especially for the latter but I'd still write anyways.

Dry is a movie about a female gynaecologist/obstetrician who found her closure by confronting her fears of going to Nigeria to fight the war of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula in teenage girls in the northern part of Nigeria and to also confront her rapist (never mind that I am still pissed that they referred to Africa as a country, pfft!!)

Jenifa's Diary? Well, we all know about Jenifa - that crazy and razz girl from Ayetoro with a forgiving heart who strives to carve a niche for herself in Lagos.

One of the common messages to learn from these two is forgiveness. I've been able to understand how forgiveness gives one closure after confronting one's fears, how forgiveness gives a certain kind of inexplicable relief psychologically.

There are some things, words or acts which are unforgivable in a moral, social or character context and can never be reversed once the act has been carried out. Many of us are victims, myself included. However, I like to think that time and distance are great tools which provide the much needed closure for forgiveness, although time is the most essential of the two. We may or may not forget, but if we could forgive, we are assured of the mental relief we would feel.

We may get hunted by our past every now and then. Those flashbacks are what they are - flashes of pain and soreness and hurt that would tempt us to go back in time and put a gun to the heads of those who put us through hell for no just cause. Those flashes are there to remind us that we are stronger than we think. We have been able to wipe our tears, dust our feet and move on. We have survived and are better off. We have learned our lessons.

A forgiving heart helps us find and gain closure once we confront our worst fears, but a grudging and malcious heart drives away peace, love and happiness and paves the way to become dark shadows of who we are - always afraid, wary and restless.

Let us gain insight and perspective from the main characters in Dry and Jenifa's Diary, Zara Robins and Jenifa, and open our hearts out to close up the pain even if we don't ever want to have anything to do with the causes of our pains.

Niqui Anekwe
Imaginations Run Deep (August Cover).