The last chair in group - by Maqdiya Abdulsalam

Dr. Tunde Adebayo ran the Thursday 4pm grief group at Lagos University Teaching Hospital. It wasn’t really a group. It was a room with eight chairs and a box of tissues that emptied too fast. The hospital made him run it after the suicide cluster in 2019. Three med students in four months. The dean called it “proactive mental health outreach.” Tunde called it “too late.” But he showed up. Every Thursday. 4pm. For two years, seven chairs filled. One stayed empty. The chair by the window. Nobody sat there. New people came, saw it, chose any other seat. Like it was reserved. It wasn’t. It was just the chair closest to the door, farthest from Tunde. The safest place to bolt. On March 3rd, 2022, someone sat in it. She was maybe 20. Scrubs, hospital ID flipped backward. Dark circles. She didn’t say her name for three weeks. Tunde didn’t ask. Rule 1 of group: you talk when you’re ready. Rule 2: we don’t do “and what do you do?” because half the room was on leave from doing it. The girl in the last chair listened. Never spoke. Never cried. When the tissue box came around, she’d take one, fold it into a smaller and smaller square, then put it in her pocket. By week four, her scrub pocket bulged. Week five, a man named Chidi talked about his brother. Car accident. He said, “The worst part is I keep forgetting he’s dead. I’ll think ‘I should call him’ and then I remember. It’s like he dies again.” The girl in the last chair made a sound. Not a word. A breath. Tunde looked up. She was staring at Chidi. Then she pulled a tissue from her pocket — not a fresh one, one of the folded ones — and unfolded it. It was covered in writing. Tiny blue pen. Front and back. She stood up, walked to Chidi, set the tissue on his knee, and sat back down. Chidi read it. He didn’t read it out loud. He just folded it back up, differently this time, and put it in his own pocket. He nodded at her. That was it. Group ended. Tunde stopped her at the door. “I’m Tunde.” “I know,” she said. First words. “You’re the one who doesn’t ask.” “What’s your name?” “Not yet.” “Okay. Next Thursday?” She shrugged. But she came back.That was Ife. 21. Third-year med student. Her brother died by suicide eight months earlier. He was also a med student. Same university. He’d been in Tunde’s group for two sessions before he dropped out. Tunde didn’t remember him. There were too many. That was the thing that kept him up at night. Ife knew. She’d found his name in her brother’s journal. _Dr. Adebayo says “name the feeling.” I feel like a fraud._ So she came to group. Not for her. For him. To see if Tunde was the kind of man her brother thought he was. For three months, Ife only spoke through tissues. She’d come with them pre-written. She’d pass them out like notes in class. She never spoke, but people started waiting for her tissues. To the woman who lost her mom: _Grief doesn’t have stages. It has weather. Today is rain. Rain ends._ To the man who found his roommate: _You didn’t cause it. You couldn’t have. Brains lie to us. That’s the disease._ To Tunde, on a day he looked tired: _You didn’t miss it. You can’t see around corners. No one can._ Tunde, psychologist, PhD, 15 years experience, kept every tissue. He had a drawer. He called it “peer review.” He figured it out in June. Ife’s brother was Emeka. Session two, Emeka said he felt like a fraud because he couldn’t help his patients if he couldn’t help himself. Tunde had said, “Therapists aren’t immune. Cardiologists have heart attacks. It doesn’t make them bad doctors. It makes them human.” Emeka didn’t come back. Two weeks later, he was gone. Tunde didn’t tell Ife he knew. Rule 1: you talk when you’re ready. July, Ife missed two groups. Week three, she came back. Sat in the last chair. Didn’t have a tissue. She looked at Tunde for the whole hour. After group, she said, “You know who I am.” “Yes.” “Did you know when he—” “No. I found out after. I’m sorry.” “Did he— did he say anything about me?” Tunde remembered. Session two, Emeka said, “My sister wants to be a doctor too. I told her not to. It’s too hard.” Tunde had asked, “Did you tell her why?” Emeka said, “No. I told her it’s great. I lied.” Tunde told Ife the truth: “He said you wanted to be a doctor. He said he lied and told you it’s great. He was trying to protect you.” Ife sat back down in the last chair. She pulled out a fresh tissue. She didn’t write. She cried. First time. Loud, ugly, snot crying. The kind that scares people. Nobody moved. Chidi, the man from week five, got up and sat on the floor next to her chair. He didn’t touch her. He just sat. Then the woman who lost her mom did. Then three others. Tunde didn’t say “it’s okay” or “let it out.” He said, “I’m here. We’re here.” That’s all psychology is sometimes. A room and a sentence and people who don’t leave. Ife came back the next week. She sat in the chair next to Tunde. The last chair by the window was empty. She spoke for the first time. “My name is Ife. My brother was Emeka. He sat there.” She pointed to the window. “I’m a med student. I’m not on leave. I’m failing anatomy because I can’t look at the cadavers without thinking of him. I don’t know if I should be a doctor.” Chidi said, “My brother died in a car. I’m a mechanic. I still fix cars. Sometimes I throw up after. Then I fix another one.” The woman who lost her mom said, “I’m a nurse. I gave my mom her last morphine. I still give morphine. I say her name every time. Then I chart it.” Tunde said, “Cardiologists have heart attacks. Therapists have grief group. You’re allowed to be a doctor and be sad. You’re not allowed to be a doctor alone.” Ife stayed. She stopped writing tissues. She talked. A lot. She told a new girl, three months later, “Grief has weather. Today is rain. Rain ends.” The new girl looked at her like she’d invented language. Ife graduated in 2024. She matched to psychiatry. She asked Tunde to write her recommendation letter. He did. He wrote: _Ife understands that you don’t have to be finished healing to help others heal. She learned that in the last chair._ She works at LUTH now. Same hospital. She runs the Monday 4pm group for med students. It has eight chairs. One by the window. It’s never empty. Last month, Tunde went to visit. He didn’t tell her. He sat in the back. 4:03pm, a boy in scrubs slipped in late. Sat in the last chair. Didn’t talk. Ife didn’t ask his name. She just passed him a tissue. Blank. He took it. Folded it. Put it in his pocket. After group, Tunde found Ife. “Still using tissues?” She smiled. “Only for the ones who aren’t ready for words. Paper is less scary.” “Do you keep them?” “Yeah. I have a drawer. I call it ‘peer review.’” Tunde went home and opened his drawer. 47 tissues. He took out the first one Ife ever gave him. The one she gave Chidi. He’d never read it. It wasn’t his. He called Chidi. “You still have that tissue from 2022?” Chidi laughed. “Yeah. Want to know what it said?” “Yes.” _“You remember because you loved him. Love doesn’t update fast. That’s not failure. That’s proof.”_ Tunde sat down. He was 52. He’d been a psychologist for 20 years. He’d published papers on complicated grief. He’d taught “name the feeling” to two hundred students. He’d never heard it said better. He texted Ife: _You were right. I didn’t miss it. You can’t see around corners._ She wrote back: _No one can. That’s why we need groups. So someone else is looking from a different angle._

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