Whisper To My Aching Heart

In the novella WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, Joseph R. Alila, the author of "The Milayi Curse", tells a story about two eighteenth-century Luo widows who battle against great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving story, the desire of one woman to honor the wishes of a fallen husband, and another woman's resolution to establish a legacy of a fallen son, unify the widows into a purposeful whole; that oneness enables them to survive the pain and humiliation of rejection (by their husbands' male kin), and they triumph in the end.A young widow (Apiny) is the bearer of the damning spiritually untouchable label in a patriarchal eighteenth-century African (Luo) clan. Ejected alongside her widowed mother-in-law and ridiculed by friends, Apiny waits for fifteen years before she receives another man in her bed. Even then, Apiny's moment of triumph only comes after her old mother-in-law (Nyandeje) remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin), who answers the call to redeem his fallen brother's honor. Even after Apiny gets all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters she wishes to get from her youthful lover, she still is not at peace in her heart. She mourns and struggles, in her heart, as her youthful husband inevitably bows to Luo cultural demands and receives his own a virgin wife (Nyogola). In Apiny's senior years, the reality of her age and jealousy against young Nyogola (and her sons) motivate her (Apiny) to eject Otin from her home, publicly. She instead opts for the company of one Achoki, an older man.