cn0805_0152

forgotten women
Widows struggle to adjust to a new life
BY JOVAN KASSAB
Shock! Grief! Anger! Guilt! Guilt for not saying
what you wish you would had said. Grief
for losing your life partner. Guilt for being
alive. These are some of the emotions a widow goes
through. It’s something no married person wants to
imagine. Yet each year, we know another Chaldean
who mourns the passing of her husband.
After a funeral, most guests go home and resume
their lives. This is when, for many widows, life
becomes extremely quiet, lonely and frightening.
Becoming a widow at 50 was not part of Ilham
Yono’s plan, but when her husband, Sabah,
passed away at the age of 59 from Lou Gherig’s
Disease, reality hit her — hard.
Ilham, from Sterling Heights, moved here
from Iraq in 1993 with her husband and their
four kids. “Death is hard for all of us,” Ilham
said. “But with children I had to try to explain
it without engulfing them in my own grief. I
knew we had to continue living.”
Ilham’s youngest son, 7 at the time of his
father’s death, understood his father was gone
forever but always wondered if the same thing
could happen to his mother. “His security was
shaken so I would comfort him the best I could
while I was dealing with my own issues,” she said.
Another challenge was not having her husband
there when their oldest daughter married and had a
child. “Our daughter was in her 20s so she was much
stronger. Yes, she wished her dad was there but she
also believed he was watching from Heaven and
sometimes that makes the situation a little better.”
SHATTERED WORLD
On March 17, 2005, Huda Murad, 36, from West
Bloomfield got a phone call that changed her life forever.
Her husband, Waad, had been shot at his business’s
parking lot in Detroit.
Ilham and Sabah Yono
Huda and Waad Murad
“My whole world shattered
and my body was numb,” she said. “I held my kids
tight and prayed to God. I knew God was listening but
I also knew He has His own ways and plans for us.”
When Murad saw Waad in the hospital she
remembered how full of life he was. “Never did I
imagine a bullet would take him down,” she said.
Murad said she had to accept the fact that God
had a plan. “Heaven gained a great angel and for a
while, I lived with that angel,” She said. Murad is
left to raise her three kids (the oldest is 14) without
a father. “My kids try to convince me that he
will come back. They tell me to just wait and see.
The worst part is knowing he won’t,” she said.
“How do I tell my kids that?”
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE
Feriyal Yono of Orchard Lake provides
much-needed support to these widows and
their families. As a widow herself — twice —
she can certainly relate.
Like many young Chaldean girls, Yono
came to America for an arranged marriage
without her family. Four months after
having her second child, her husband, 32,
died of heart failure. “With no immediate
family to rely on or money to support
myself and my children, I agreed to another
marriage at the urging of my friends and extended
family,” she said. Six months after having
another child, Yono became widowed again when
her second husband died, also of heart failure. She
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38 CHALDEAN NEWS AUGUST 2005