Losing Mama.

My maternal grandmother passed away in May 2016, yet the memory of her death feels fresh on some days. It happened on a Sunday, I woke up one morning, and my parents were in a hurry to visit her at the hospital, “she was sick,” they said. I told myself that the panic and fear I felt was not warranted because most older adults are sick or battling one health condition or the other, and my grandma was no exception. I returned from church later that day, and I was waiting for my aunty to open the door when she told me that mama was dead. I am silent. I am angry. I do not cry or ask any questions; I change out of my church clothes and help in the kitchen while their eyes follow me. I’ve realized over the years that my brain reacts to death with indifference; it spends hours processing and questioning the authenticity of the news of death. Looking back, I am angry at myself sometimes for not shrieking, bursting into tears or showing any sign that the floor had disappeared and inside me was unravelling. I visit mama’s house, and it irks me to see that the parlour has been re-painted, the worn-out black chair she sat on is no longer there, and her room has been transformed. I can’t help but feel like signs of her presence are there and, at the same time, are slowly disappearing.

No one fully understands another’s grief. I read and re-read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Notes on Grief,” and just like she does, I too wish a lot of things. I wish I had combed her hair, held her bent back while she walked or fanned her while she slept. I showed love to her the way the 15-year-old in me knew how but I can’t help but wonder if she knew how much I loved her. If she were here, I would say it over and over again in my half-baked Igbo so that she knows.

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I would love to think of my grandma as sophisticated, a feminist, but she wasn’t that, and that’s okay. She married at a young age, ran a mini provision store and had a beautiful home where she and my grandpa raised their ten children. My mum told me of her police officer father who loved her deeply; she told me also that he named her “Onejuluno”, which translates to “how many are there in my house,” because he already had many female children when she was born, but my siblings and I called her “Mama Shomolu” because that was where she lived. I will miss her complaining to my mum when she saw me unhappy or sending someone to quickly go and buy us “soft drinks” when we visited. This is the thing about grief, this moment; you’re sad and angry and happy and nostalgic.

There is no more “mama Shomolu” or our every Sunday visits to see her, there are many things that there are no more of, but my love for her remains, my memories of her remain and just like Adichie said, I” …will live with my hands outstretched for things and no longer there.”

Source: Arinze Ifunanya