I write to make sense of life, love, culture and everything in between.

Relative-ly Speaking

Apparently, My Father Needed More Children

Grief, lineage and the proposal that a wife be married in a late father’s name so that his lineage could continue.

A woman reflecting beside a letter and notebook at the edge of the savanna

Grief has a way of opening doors that common sense thought it had locked.

The proposal was delivered as tradition often is: calmly, practically and with the confidence of an idea that had outlived everyone in the room.

What do we inherit—and what do we choose?

I listened as a daughter, which is to say with love, suspicion and a memory long enough to complicate every easy answer.


Achom writes about culture, memory, family, womanhood and the fine print between inheritance and choice.