ACUTE OBSERVATIONS OF A CONTRARIAN DIASPORAN: HEY MAMA

Exploring Grief, Love, and Personal Growth Through Emezi’s Captivating Novel

Hey Mama,

I’ve been thinking about how some books feel entirely different the second time you read them. The sentences don’t change, but you do. You become softer, or maybe just more bruised in the places that matter. I first read Akwaeke Emezi’s ‘You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty’ when you were still here, not well, but here. Still blinking when I said something you found amusing. Still squeezing my hand when I read aloud. You couldn’t speak, but you were awake, and that was enough.

One afternoon, I sat beside you with the book splayed open on my lap, grumbling at the text like it had personally wronged me. “Mama,” I said, “can you believe this woman?” You blinked once, and that blink carried your usual restraint—your gentle reminder that the world is rarely as simple as I want it to be.

I found Feyi reckless. Selfish, even. The kind of character I wanted to shake, not because she was bad, but because she dared to move on in that way. I judged her then, quickly and with conviction. It was easy to dislike her when my grief was still theoretical—still stitched inside questions like What happens when she’s no longer here?

But now, rereading it—with loss no longer hypothetical—I see her. I see myself in her. And Mama, I think you would have too.

Feyi Adekola: A Woman Unfolding

When the novel opens, Feyi is at a house party in Bushwick with Joy, her longtime best friend, who, in my opinion, is the emotional backbone of the entire story. Feyi ends up having a spontaneous encounter with Milan in a bathroom. No prelude. No emotional intimacy. Just skin and impulse. I frowned at it the first time. I reread that scene now and think, Yes. Of course.

Sometimes grief doesn’t want healing—it wants sensation. It wants confirmation that the body can still feel, even if the soul is uninterested in reconciliation.

Feyi and Milan keep sleeping together, neither asking real questions, both moving through the world with grief like a second shadow. Their relationship lacks emotional depth but is strangely tender in its refusal to pretend.

Then Nasir appears. He’s Milan’s friend, warm and attentive in that way that feels like a balm, especially next to Milan’s emotional detachment. Feyi initially shuts him down when he flirts, but Nasir persists—respectfully, without aggression. And eventually, with Milan’s quiet blessing, Feyi decides to explore the possibility.

They don’t sleep together. They talk. She opens up about Jonah—her late husband—and Nasir listens. There’s a gentleness to him, a restraint that initially feels sincere. And when she invites him to her art studio in Brooklyn, something shifts. He’s not just captivated by her presence—he’s moved by her work.

And then he offers her everything: a fully funded opportunity to travel to his Caribbean island and exhibit alongside renowned artists. She hesitates. You would have approved of that hesitation. You always said, Not every offer is a gift.

But she goes.

Arrival and Realization

Feyi and Nasir arrive at the airport. There’s no grand reveal. No prior warning. Just a man waiting to pick them up.

It’s Alim Blake. A world-renowned chef that Feyi and Joy have gushed about from a TV cooking competition. He’s Nasir’s father.

Alim isn’t just charming. He’s magnetic. Famous. Widowed. And the moment Feyi lays eyes on him, there is an inexplicable shift—a recognition. She feels something that unsettles her, and the first thing she does after their initial encounter is call Joy to confess the pull.

Alim lost his wife to drowning years ago. Feyi lost Jonah to a car crash she survived. Their grief is not parallel—it’s entangled. And when they speak of loss, they count time in days. Not years. Not milestones. Days. The way people who truly mourn always do.

Love in the Wake of Ruin

Their connection grows slowly but decisively, drawn not only by physical attraction but by an intimacy rooted in shared pain. The conversations are quiet. Sacred. Alim doesn’t press. Feyi doesn’t explain herself. And yet, what blooms between them feels more profound than any structured romance.

When Feyi questions whether this is wrong, she’s not asking out of shame—she’s asking out of fear. Of hurting Nasir. Of collapsing the tenuous bridge between herself and a future that suddenly feels possible.

I used to think falling for your almost-boyfriend’s father was drama for drama’s sake. But now I think—what if love sometimes arrives exactly where logic cannot reach?

The Violence Beneath Tenderness

Nasir doesn’t take it well. Which is fair. But Mama, you’d have noticed what I saw: the rage, the unraveling, the sharpness beneath the surface. He’s not just heartbroken. He’s close to becoming violent.

And that’s where my judgment of Feyi faltered. Because in the face of Nasir’s fury, she doesn’t plead. She doesn’t apologize. She simply protects herself.

You taught me to pay attention to who people become when denied. Kindness is only valuable when it survives disappointment, you used to say. Nasir’s didn’t.

Cuisine as Care, as Communion, as Confession

Mama, you always said that food tells the truth. That when words begin to fail, the hand that seasons still knows what to say. You told me I communicate in taste—my sentences simmered, my spices deliberate. And I think that’s why the food in this novel felt so close, so familiar. It didn’t speak loudly. It didn’t perform. It held space.

Alim’s kitchen isn’t a place for performance—it’s a sanctuary.

The lionfish ceviche in coconut and lime isn’t just an amuse-bouche. It’s an offering. A dish that says, I understand the fragility of things. There’s symbolism tucked in every slice of onion, every twist of citrus. His meals don’t parade. They comfort. They act as quiet gestures of recognition, saying I see your hunger, not just in your body, but in your grief.

The curried goat served alongside roasted breadfruit is thick with nostalgia. It tastes like something passed down without ever being written—recipes that survive through instinct. You’d have said that’s the best kind. The kind that knows you before you know yourself. Alim’s cooking feels like the kind of care that exists without expectation. The tenderness in his dishes reminded me of how you used cloves in places others wouldn’t dare—how you trusted flavor to hold emotion.

And then, there’s Feyi’s grilled cheese.

It’s the only thing she makes in the novel. A sandwich—simple, familiar, unimpressive if you only count ingredients. But it’s not about the ingredients. It’s about the gesture. Feyi prepares it for Alim with apprehension, fully aware that she is stepping into his realm. She is not a chef. She doesn’t claim mastery. But she makes it anyway—not to prove herself, but to say this is not my thing, but for you, I’ll make an exception.

The caramelized onions are her vulnerability. The melted cheese​—her way of saying I care, even if I don’t know how to say it aloud. That sandwich is not an attempt to dazzle—it’s an act of grace, folded between bread.

I understood that gesture, Mama. I’ve done it myself—served food not to impress but to comfort. To show someone I see them, even when I don’t have the words. You used to stand next to me while I cooked and say, “They won’t remember your adjectives, but they’ll remember how they felt after they ate.” You knew flavor could hold feeling.

Food in this novel isn’t decorative. It’s emotional architecture. It holds the story up when language begins to falter.

And you, Mama, would have tasted every page.

Joy, Milan, and the Architecture of Friendship

Throughout it all, Joy is steadfast. Funny, non-judgmental, fiercely protective. The kind of friend who listens when Feyi spirals and never tries to reroute her decisions. Just a voice, steady in the storm.

Milan returns, too, more tender than before, no longer just a hookup but someone who understands how far pain can push a person toward pleasure. He encourages Feyi to choose happiness, not out of obligation, but because he’s learned how fleeting joy can be.

Feyi’s Reclamation

In the end, Feyi doesn’t beg for forgiveness. She doesn’t retreat. She paints. She rises. Her work is commissioned, celebrated, paid. But more importantly, her choices—however messy—are hers.

And I understand her now.

I understand the need to choose sensation over silence. To seek companionship, not for healing, but for witness.

Reading this book to you while you were sick, I wanted to be righteous. You couldn’t respond, so I made myself the voice of reason. But you blinked—slow and deliberate—and I could feel your reminder echoing inside me: Don’t judge too quickly. You don’t know what they carry.

Until Next Time

I’ll keep rereading. Keep re-feeling. Keep letting books remind me how grief shifts shape—how the same page hits differently in a new season of mourning.

Thank you for teaching me how to read with grace. How to see with nuance. How to love the flawed, especially when the flawed is myself.

I miss you.

Love always,

Your Nene​, Your Sang

The Contrarian Diasporan