In this week’s episode of #WithChude, actress and TV Host, Chinonso Arubayi opened up to host and co-founder of Joy, Inc., Chude Jideonwo about dealing with grief, struggling with social expectations and her faith following the sudden death of her husband, Eric Arubayi.
Gospel Singer, Eric Arubayi, died suddenly in February 2017 at the age of 34 due to complications arising from the administration of expired malaria drugs. He had been married to Chinonso for threeyears.
Chinonso revealed how she felt slighted by God; she found herself asking, “How am I going to deal with this, God? This is not what you promised me.”
Amid that crisis, Chinonso, who is also an accomplished make-up artist, was faced with another battle – society’s expectations of how she must grieve.
“I fell into depression. I felt judged.
I’ll hear things like, “she was not crying.”
There are so many ways the society expects you to grieve in Africa,” she said.
She tried to keep up, “at that point, I was trying to please society. So I was like, what am I supposed to do? Some people said to wear white, some said to wear white, and some said you don’t have to [because] you’re a Christian.” It was overwhelming to keep up with the pace of unsolicited counsel, “it was too many opinions and everybody is telling you how to grieve or what you’re doing wrong or right,” she disclosed.
She has since picked up the pieces and is moving on, even though as she revealed, “I love him. I still think of him as my husband even though people address me as the Late Eric’s wife.”
#WithChude is a special series of targeted multimedia conversations and investigations focused on narratives that enable and strengthen the mind, heart, and spirit. New episodes of #WithChude show every Saturday at 9 pm on TVC Entertainment, with reruns every Sunday on Wazobia TV at 5pm, Wednesday at 8.30pm on PopCentral station, and every Thursday on EbonyLife TV at 7:30pm.
An extended play podcast is up on Spotify, iTunes, among other podcast platforms every Wednesday at 10:00am. Everyone can join the conversations.
Watch a snippet of the interview here.
