Remembering Rahima - A Story of Heartache, Healing and Hope

By Mariama Conteh

This is the story of a young, first-time mother who was unprepared for the unimaginable- the possibility of losing her baby. It is a personal story that speaks of the author's experience of losing her baby daughter immediately after her birth. More importantly it is a story of the process she goes through to come to terms with her loss, to forgive herself and forgive others and to move on with her life.

The author captures the pain, suffering and shock of the experience of losing her daughter after struggles getting pregnant. But what she also shares is hope-the road she took to heal that suffering. For anyone who has experienced something similar, this is a story of solidarity, but one that demonstrates that survival is possible. In a time that it seems that life cannot continue, when our worlds may be filled by the opposite of life and joy, there is a light. There is a beacon of hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365633652

Book preview

Remembering Rahima - A Story of Heartache, Healing and Hope

Remembering Rahima: A Story of Heartache, Healing and Hope

Copyright

Copyright © 2016 by Mariama Conteh

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2016 ISBN 978-1-365-63365-2

Amazing Realities Publication

Rue Gouvernment, Goree Island

Dakar, Senegal

Remembering Rahima: A Story of Heartache, Healing and Hope

Where is the beginning?

I have started writing this story in my mind over a hundred times. I want to say thousands but that’s not true. Hundreds. Yes. I just never know where to start. It is always very clear to me that I should start at the beginning. This never creates any confusion. But I never really can fathom where that is. The beginning. Where is the beginning of a birth or what is the beginning of birth? Do I start when I found out I was pregnant? Or maybe the beginning is when I met the baby’s father? Or the day I got married? Sometimes I think it is even well before that, with events that shaped my thoughts on having children, on pregnancy, on birth. Is it in my childhood? My birth? My mother’s childhood? Really…….I’m not sure. I realize though that in this case the answer lay in why I actually decided to share my story. And when I think about it from this point of view, I I know where to start.

I actually tried to pick up a pen and write this story once before. Then, I did not have any problems trying to work out where I should start. The dam had burst open and everything just came flooding forth. Emotions mixed with facts and were blended together smoothly with raw pain. This was the very dark juice I used as the ink in that pen. I know then I started at the birth. But that story remains unfinished somewhere in my old laptop. It was small blue Acer, about 11 inches. When I gave it away we erased all the memory so that it’s new owner would have a fresh start. So my story is lying in some virtual graveyard now, with documents on peacebuilding in West Africa, and songs from Ben Harper and John Legend drifting slowly down to cover it, burying this version of the story somewhere that it’s impossible to find. I started that version about 6 years ago, a few months after I moved to Senegal. Even though the story I am about to tell is the same story….it is not the same story. They are twins, just not identical ones.

They say one event can be seen and told a hundred different ways by different people. This event, the birth of my daughter, happened. In both stories the facts remain the same, but the fundamental difference is the emotion behind the words. Even today, almost 10 years later, I wouldn’t have the emotional strength to look at that first twin story in the eye. To feel the intensity of the pain behind my words. Without remembering one word, or sentence, or phrase, I know and feel that emotion.

I feel it was necessary to put things down in that way at the time. In fact, I am almost certain that it was. I needed it. The first version of this story was true. My anguish was real. I might have even expressed it beautifully. Lyrically- it might have been skillful. Emotionally- it might have expressed all I felt in a way that anyone reading it felt the same. But, that’s not what I wanted; to depress others.

Why did I want to tell