Sister Of Lady Who Died In Her Sleep After Years Of Domestic Abuse Writes A Long Memo

She was in an extremely brutal physical and mentally abusive marriage for 25yrs and tried her best to be happy but she has been buried,safe from harm leaving behind four beautiful children .........

Sad story.........

Domestic Abuse


My Dear Sister, It hurts me deeply to write this, as I do not explicitly have your permission to do so, and as a part of me feels that you would have still been trying to hide this somehow. However, I somewhat feel like I do have your indirect permission because of the things you revealed to me in the discussion we had just a day before you passed, and also to a few other friends, in the few months before you passed, who have now also told us.


I am intentionally not adding this to my ‘x of 50’ series, as this is not a celebration of you! This is a part, I wish NEVER happened. This is a part, I wish I could have taken away from you. This is a part, I wish you never endured. I feel a guilt here somewhat as well, as to if I even did the right thing all these years.


But here goes, just so that if it helps anybody else’s Sister, Niece, Aunt, Mother etc etc, then this is not in vain. Male relatives also, but I am specifying females as this pertains to my Sister.


I have written a lot about happy times we had with C, and indeed they truly were, but today I am writing about a sad part of C’s life.


It took me a minute to get here as I wanted my focus to be on burying my Sister, with all the strength I had and no bitterness in my heart. After that though, a lot of conflicting emotions arose.

Unfortunately, so very Unfortunately, C was in an extremely brutal physical and mentally abusive marriage for 25yrs, which started, she told me pre-marriage actually (and I thought, hmmmm and you still married him?). They had been together for 32years.


While, NO LEVEL of abuse is acceptable, and not to excuse a shove, or a slap, or a <insert anything else milder here> (which many women have endured and are still with the perpetuators) but Carol endured, life threatening abuse. To the extent that in 2013, I had written the following to her husband (an excerpt from a series of emails):

“I called you 3 times and you did not pick up your phone. I needed to get a few things across to you. Most men do not wake up in the morning and say I will kill my wife at 2.15pm today. Accidents from domestic abuse gets them there.


I need you to know that you are on the hook henceforth for Carol's life. She best die after a prolonged illness in a hospital, if not we are coming after you with vengeance. She best not hit her leg funny and fall and die coincidently! or slide and fall in a bath coincidentally, as you will unfortunately have to answer for it.”


And here we are, 7 years later, C is gone, in her sleep. Yes, people do naturally die in their sleep, C is not the first and would certainly not be the last. But this is why no-one should abuse their spouse, because then it leads to questions, instead of Sympathy.


C did separate from her Husband, I must sadly say not willingly, but from a phone call from Franca(Sister in PH) to Francis(Brother in Lagos), to go and get her out of her marital home (during an incident) before she is killed. It lasted about a year.

However as most abused women do, Carol went back to her abuser. 6 years after that she is actually DEAD. I still hate to use the ‘D’ word, but in this case, it just makes sense to call it what it is.


While there is a lot of speculation in Lagos, and people have directly and anonymously called some of my siblings to disclose what they know, I want to absolutely clarify that there is no intent here to fan those ‘her husband killed her’ rumors, but the fact that C may have died unhappy, from years of physical and mental abuse, makes me really sad. We have heard from several people of several loud fighting/quarreling in C’s home, days leading up till her death, including just the night before. The intent here is to purely address domestic abuse, in the hope that it helps someone. C is DEAD and nothing can change that.


C, tried her best to seem happy and joyous, almost overly so, and hide the pain. C repeatedly covered up for her abuser, as most abused women do. We are not that family that talked her into going back to an abusive marriage, as our culture tends to want us to do. We were were ALL opposed to it. We supported her in court (Yup it sadly got there, her abuse is legally documented) but were not successful in keeping her away from him. They had a very strong bond.


Unfortunately co-dependency does this, but people protect the people they love. They do not abuse them. C has been with him since she was about 18, she knew no different.


C talked about losing hearing in one ear from a blow to her head in 1999, C suffered persistent headaches from these blows, C had to cover a patch on her scalp from where her hair was yanked out of her head. These amongst others is what we know of, as we all know the abused never tells the entire story!


If you know anyone going through an abusive marriage/relationship, be it physical or emotional, please advice them to LEAVE. Happiness is key in life, and you don’t want to bury a sibling amidst uncertain circumstances, like we just did.


As many of you know we are a family of VERY strong women, including my Mother, and yet this happened to us. This is to show that abuse crosses several boundaries. If you suspect abuse, please ask, if you know of abuse please OUT the person. It is the secrecy that fuels abuse, as men tend to NOT abuse their wives in public. Even they know that it is a shameful, demeaning, low self esteem act.


Interestingly my Brother told me this once, ‘Liz, I am a man, let me tell you this, there is nowhere men gather and another man walks in and says ‘hand me a beer, I just finished beating up my wife’ and the other men hail and high five him and hand him the beer!!! There are sadly some other bad things men do that we high five them for, but not abuse!’


Abuse is evil! Purely evil! I have spoken of, and shared pictures of, how extremely beautiful my Sister was, how graceful, how always beautifully dressed, how well spoken she was, yet she was belittled into feeling unworthy. Equally as evil, emotional abuse cuts deep!


Does anyone condone pedophilia? Does anyone condone physical child abuse? While we all agree there is a big difference between children and adult abuse, the abusers mind remains the same, target is just different. Grooming, planning and execution. Sadly domestic abuse is often treated as rape instead(crimes against mostly women), where some form of blame is attached.


Truth is the raped girl in the mini skirt, presented to a non-rapist will not be raped. They maybe cajoled into the same sexual act, but it will be consensual, a big difference. Domestic violence is never RIGHT.

People tend to want to stay ‘because of the children’, to each their own, however, the same children being protected, tend to witness the abuse and are scarred as well. a lose lose situation.

Please share this, in the hope that it helps, even if it is one more woman to escape abuse.

I apologize C, but your Children need to know it is wrong, our Nieces and Nephews need to know it is wrong. The more we address domestic abuse, the more it hopefully stops.


One wish I have is that you were here to speak to this, as you would do a marvelous job at it! Your public speaking was impeccable.

Like It was said in your tribute, you are now SAFE! Interesting choice of words.

Thanks so much for reading. I know it was a long read, but I really hope it touched someone, somewhere, enough to make a difference.


We all miss you dearly, My Sister, Continue to Rest In Peace. Till we meet again. I will still ask you then ‘what happened girl??!!! Maybe over some cocktail in the Heaven lounge??