Sitting in her living room with family portraits of her late husband behind her, Seleima Veisamasama is the picture of a calm and confident woman despite the turmoil that she has experienced over the past year, and particularly in the last few months since the passing of her husband.
“Life is full of things that are unexpected and if we are to live well, we must always be prepared for the unexpected. I’m saying this because I am experiencing it. One year ago I never thought that I would be a widow today,” she says quietly but firmly.
“A year ago, we were still talking about our plans, about our children going to work and how we were going to travel and things like that. Then at the beginning of last year, he started losing his eyesight. By August, the percentage of vision that he had left was quite low. We didn’t know it was going to dwindle down so fast and that we were going to be left like this. It all happened so quickly.”