When Life Broke Open
A Widow's Journey Through Loss, Faith, and New Beginnings
Foreword by Adeola Temitope Aina, author of H.E.R. Journey
Because sometimes, life breaks open not to destroy us, but to make room for the life we never imagined was possible.
On a Monday evening in October 2020, Oladayo Odunlami felt something shift. Her husband, Adeniyi, was away on a work trip in northern Nigeria. His phones were dead. Her messages were not going through. And somewhere beneath the silence, she knew.
He was forty-two years old, killed by unknown gunmen in a forest in northern Nigeria. By the time she was told, she had already been grieving for two days.
What followed were years she could not have predicted, and barely survived: widowhood, single parenthood, the sale of everything she had built, a journey to Canada with two children, illness, and a grief that refused to finish with her. And then, slowly, unexpectedly, something else: a kitchen that became a sanctuary, a classroom that gave her back her voice, a faith that held even when she could not feel it.
When Life Broke Open is the true story of a woman who lost the life she had planned and found, in the rubble, something she never knew to hope for. Written with honesty, warmth, and quiet faith, this memoir is for the widow and the widower, for the single parent, the caregiver, and anyone who has ever wondered whether it is possible to begin again after life has shattered.
Because sometimes, life breaks open not to destroy us, but to make room for the life we never imagined was possible.
Life does not end when everything changes. This book is evidence of that.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3
- Formats
- Paperback, Hardcover, E-book
- ISBN, Canadian edition
- 978-1-0658929-1-5
- ISBN, Nigerian edition
- 978-978-63891-0-3