On the 24th of April, the world as I knew it changed. The inevitability of pain caught up with me. For the first time in my little life, I felt the sting of death. It’s unimaginable how much a huge part of our lives hinges on the beating of a single heart.
I remember when I was in, maybe Form 2 or Form 3, I once joked that I would never cry even if I lost someone so close to me. Or was I serious? My reason was clear: crying would never change the reality. My mother didn’t argue with me. But her response shut me down. “Wait until I die.”
Sure enough, my theory stood the test of time until my mother’s theory came to test. The moment when I learnt of my mother’s death was one of the most excruciating moments of my life. I was extremely shocked. I remember falling on my knees and my grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears. I was overtaken by a great tremor and my body was wracked with an onslaught of sobs and tears. For the first time in a very long time, I felt the cold touch of tears on my emaciated cheeks.
For a moment, I wondered how they’d known she was dead. Who were they to say? I didn’t care to believe them until I saw her myself. She was really dead. I reached out for her stiff fingers and felt a severely cold touch. I looked at her face and anguish overtook me. I could imagine the kind of pain, discomfort, and fear she must have felt while she took her last breath. At that moment, everything made me angry. The fact that the doctors, or nurses had indicated on her face with a white tape that she was 52 years old, when I was so sure she was 54; the fact that she had been wrapped in sheets like a piece of meat; the fact that the insurance company took so long to clear the bill; the fact that everyone kept calling her ‘body’, even my sister, to whom just a few hours before, she was “Mama”; even the fact that I was in the very hospital I had previously been with her, and only with her, now without her.
For the next two weeks, my little miserable life was a wreck. I cared so little about anything. Did I have a job? A girlfriend? Money? Clean clothes? They all didn’t matter to me. It occurred to me then that everything I’d ever wanted or did was for my mother. I wanted a job so I could help her. She really should’ve met my girlfriend; would she applaud my choice? My decency in dressing was mostly to make her proud. And every dime I had made sense to me if I shared a part of it with her. Now that she was gone, what did they matter? I had somehow lost my rationality. I said anything and everything that made me feel better, whether or not they were right, sensible, or ‘cool’.
Relatives started to come in from different corners of the world. Many arrived while wailing in astoundingly agonizing tones. Some chanted in traditional lects while mentioning their own recollections of her. Some made me sadder, some made me laugh, and some made angry. My mother had been ill for quite a long time, and very few of the relatives that were so ‘broken’ by her loss had cared to at least visit her. They kept their distance when she was desperately in need of emotional and financial support. I couldn’t stand such pretense. I had to keep my distance or I would find myself confronting women old enough to curse me to my ninth generation.
There came the task of writing and designing her funeral program. One task I had never even imagined myself doing. It wasn’t easy, but for some reason, I didn’t want anyone else to do it. As much as my mum had lived most of her life before I was born, I wanted my voice to be the one telling her story. Alone in a room, amid tears and sobs, I scribbled words to form a story and hoped it would make sense. It wasn’t easy writing it. Referring to her in the past tense was particularly intense. But to be honest, writing it gave me a kind of satisfaction that greatly helped with my grief. I was happy to have written it.
I have always been quite the religious person. The loss would undoubtedly put my faith to test. For me, however, it didn’t. My faith had already been put to test with a lot of worldly vanities, and this loss had so little of my faith to test. My mother had been very ill. She had been in so much pain. I had prayed so much that she gets better. At some point, I started wondering if it was really possible. But I believed that with God, everything is possible. She grew weaker, but I still believed God would hear our prayers. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night amidst unimaginable pain just to ask God to relieve her. I felt so much pain as she cried out to God to heal her. God had seen her through the ICU in 2018. Why wouldn’t He do it again? When she finally rested, a part of me was relieved that she was finally free of the unending agony she had faced for the last at least one year.
My world has always been centered around my mother. And now that she is no longer here, a paradigm shift is inevitable. I have no words that can adequately describe the magnitude of my loss, or tear, or facial expression that could sufficiently express the agony that struck my soul as her only remains were lowered six feet below the ground and eternally sealed.
I am not writing this to invite sympathy or condolences. I am way past that road. I am writing this because I feel absolutely compelled to write it before my life can go on.
I have been patiently waiting for the healing of time. For the last four months, it’s arrival has been delayed. But I am beginning to think it will never come. Losing someone so close is not something that time heals, maybe. I don’t know if I will ever come to closure about this, but I know that she will be alive in my conscience as long as I live. I can’t help it.
Thank you for reading through my emotional baggage. Now if there is anything for you to learn, it is this: the inevitability of death. We will all die. There was a time before us, there sure shall be a time after us. Our time is limited in this world.
Also, for those of you who haven’t experiences personal losses, learn that when a friend loses someone close, it doesn’t help to tell them “May her soul rest in peace” or “I’m so sorry for your loss”. What helps is your presence to show them how much their loss touches you. Money helps, but not so much. But words are empty and meaningless. If they’re really your friend, take some action. I took a lot of comfort in knowing that my friends felt almost as much pain as I felt. That is an invaluable gift most grieving people never get, and I am eternally grateful to you, my dear friends.
Finally dear readers, I can’t stress enough how much I wish my mother was still here. To smile at how far I’ve come, how far I’ve gotten. If you’re lucky yours is still around, show her some love. Not only your mother, your father as well. My mother might have died in pain, but I assure you that her final days were filled with joy because of the love she got from her children. I personally didn’t have much back then, but whatever little I had, I gave her wholeheartedly. My time, my service, my all. Nonetheless, I still wish I had spent more time with her, I had shown her more love, I had talked to her more often. I still wish I could go back in time and unsay somethings, undo somethings. So, if you still have the ability to show your parents love, do it wholeheartedly, friend.
Adios.
