By : Chioma Madonna Ndukwu
The Way We Live: The Cost of Saying, “I’m Fine.”
By nine o’clock on Monday morning, Grace had already said, “I’m fine,” four times.
The first was to the woman who sold akara outside her office.
“You’ve not smiled today,” the woman said, handing her the paper bag.
Grace smiled anyway.
“I’m fine.”
At the reception desk, Sandra looked up from her computer.
“You left before closing yesterday. Everything okay?”
Grace placed her handbag on the chair.
“I’m fine. Traffic was getting worse.”
Sandra watched her for a moment, then returned to her screen.
Some answers are small enough to pass unnoticed, yet heavy enough to follow a person home.
Hundreds of kilometres away in Enugu, Grace’s father lay on a hospital bed while a nurse checked his blood pressure. His phone rang.
“My daughter.”
Grace answered immediately.
“Daddy, how are you feeling this morning?”
“I’m getting stronger.”
“You sound tired.”
He chuckled.
“My daughter, old men are allowed to sound tired.”
She laughed for the first time that day.
“I’ll come after work.”
“Don’t rush. Your job is important.”
“So are you.”
For a few seconds, none of them spoke.
Inside the drawer beside his bed were hospital bills he had not yet shown her. Inside Grace’s handbag was a list of expenses she had not told him about. Love sometimes becomes a quiet agreement between two people trying not to add more weight to each other’s shoulders.
Later that afternoon, David found Grace standing beside the office window.
“You’ve been avoiding everybody.”
She turned around.
“I’ve been working.”
“You’ve answered every question today with the same two words.”
Grace looked confused.
“What two words?”
“‘I’m fine.’”
She looked away.
“So?”
“So, I don’t believe you.”
She laughed softly.
“Since when did you become an expert?”
“My mother used to say something. She said people who are carrying too much often become very good at looking normal.”
Grace folded her arms.
“You should meet my mother. She already worries enough. If I tell her everything, she won’t sleep.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“When do you sleep?”
The question stayed between them.
Grace lowered her eyes.
“I don’t remember.”
David walked towards the office kettle.
“Tea?”
She nodded.
As he handed her the cup, he said, “You know, most people ask how you are because it is what we have learned to say. But sometimes someone asks because they are ready to hear the answer.”
Grace held the cup but did not drink.
“I was at the hospital again yesterday.”
“Your dad?”
She nodded.
“The doctors are hopeful.”
“That’s good.”
She looked at the tea.
“Hope is beautiful. But lately it seems to arrive with a bill attached.”
David smiled, but his face remained serious.
“Have you told anyone how difficult this has been?”
“I keep thinking tomorrow will be easier.”
“And today?”
Grace took a slow breath.
“Today feels heavier.”
None of spoke for a while. The tea cooled between them, but the silence no longer felt uncomfortable.
A few days later, Chinedu finished a night shift at a hospital in Manchester when his sister called from Abuja.
“Mummy said you sounded happy yesterday.”
“I sounded happy?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
“I have to sound like something.”
“That is not an answer.”
He leaned against the hospital wall.
“Have you ever missed home so much that you start counting your life through phone calls?”
Her voice became softer.
“You’ve been saying you’re fine every time we talk.”
“I know.”
“You don’t always have to be.”
For the next thirty minutes, they spoke about things they usually rushed past. Their mother’s cooking. Their childhood arguments. The street where they grew up. The little things that become precious when distance stretches between people.
Sometimes a person does not need a solution. Sometimes they need a conversation that does not hurry.
The words of the late American author Maya Angelou remain powerful: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Many people carry parts of their lives carefully folded away, waiting for a moment when someone will make room for the truth.
That truth looks different in every home. A teacher in Nairobi worries about the future of her classroom.
A father in Toronto smiles through a video call because he does not want his children to see his loneliness.
A trader in Accra tells customers business is improving while quietly rearranging tomorrow’s expenses.
A nurse in Birmingham finishes her shift and misses the sound of her family eating together. Different places. Similar human needs.
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu captured that connection when he said, “My humanity is bound up in yours.” People are not designed to carry every season of life alone. Sometimes another person’s presence is the first sign that a difficult season can be survived.
On Friday evening, Grace left work earlier than usual. She carried a flask of tea to the hospital. Her father was awake. David arrived a few minutes later with a bag of fruit.
Grace looked surprised.
“I didn’t tell you to come.”
“I know.”
“You’ve had a long week.”
“So have you.”
Her father smiled.
“I suppose this means I’m important.”
“You’ve always been,” David replied.
They talked until visiting hours ended. The conversation moved through the ordinary corners of their lives, the school Grace had once attended, the football matches her father still argued about, the recipes she attempted with confidence and ruined with equal confidence.
They laughed at old family stories they had repeated many times, yet somehow still enjoyed hearing again. For a while, nobody spoke about hospital reports, bills, or what the next day might bring.
When the nurse finally came to remind them it was time to leave, three cups of tea sat on the bedside table. Nobody remembered whose cup was whose. The conversation had lasted longer than the tea.
That evening, Grace went home without saying she was fine. She simply said, “Thank you.”
Personal Thoughts:
Many people are not searching for perfect answers. They are searching for one place where they can tell the truth without fear.
One Thing Worth Remembering:
The next time someone says, “I’m fine,” listen a little longer. Sometimes the most important part of the conversation begins after those two words.
Let’s Talk:
Who in your life has been saying, “I’m fine,” while quietly hoping someone would stay long enough to ask again?
