I remember standing next to the open grave of my Gogo* dry-eyed. I had violently wept for so long that I was all cried out. I stood still watching people lower the white wooden box into the ground. Ironically, I was the one that felt lifeless. I could barely breathe as they piled red earth on the coffin.
As the grave was filling up I remembered the crumpled piece of paper in my right hand. It was a tear stained goodbye note. The beige paper yanked from my dairy contained all the words I wished I could have said to my grandmother-but didn’t. I had, in an outpouring of anguish, summarized the relationship we had shared over a span of 22 ½ years. I had scribbled down the bits of my Gogo that even death couldn’t steal.
During the funeral I refused to view the body despite several suggestions that I should. It would give me closure and a chance to pay my final respects-they said. I even remember my mother offering to hold my hand through it…How was I to pay my respects to a corpse? What lay in that wooden box was not my grandmother-it was cold and lifeless. She was warm, loving, full of life and laughter. I could not let my last memory of her be a stiff in a white box.
I have yet to find the courage to visit her grave one and a half years later. I find myself thinking about her often-especially when I wear my make up in the morning. She used to be so fascinated by the process. Oh how she cringed as I traced my eyes with eyeliner-she always feared I’d poke myself.
But as I put the finishing touches on my face she would always look at me approvingly and say ‘Mzuri!’ (Swahili for good). That remark was priceless. Her voice…it had deepened over the years to a deep crackling one. How I wish I could hear her speak to me once more.
But such is the tragedy of life and its twin death: one allows us to love and the other rips our loved ones from our arms.
*Gogo is Kalenjin for grandmother
Straight from the heart 