Gogo called last week. Well, I called her. She never quite got to figure out this smartphone thing. And at 83 years old, I don’t think she bothers with it anymore. Last I checked, hers were frail attempts at sliding the vibrating call icon across the screen to answer the phone, an undertaking eventually relegated to her grandchildren. She just celebrated her birthday too, hence why I called—to wish her many more years. I would say to wish her a hunchback and a walking stick many years today but that would be an irony. My grandmother is already on walking stick terms.

We spoke at length about her wellness and church. If she’s not being ferried to the hospital for unending medical attention, the church is the only place to find her—or so I recalled. Mom was the same; she loved and lived for church.
“Ah mzukulu, my grandchild, it has been a while since I’ve set foot in church,” she said, sensing my immediate concern.
“But Gogo, how though? Is it too far now?”
“Unless I get transport from the presiding Pastor, gathering me from the house to church then back, I can’t walk that far anymore.”
Utter Shock!

When did Gogo stop walking long distances? I only left home three years ago. On Sundays, before I left, she was always the first one out of the house. And at the village, that had been the tradition even before Khulu passed. Sunday morning was no joke. Playing around on a Sunday morning guaranteed a ticket to Khulu or Gogo’s bad side. If breakfast was late, Khulu was out. Between late breakfast and late church arrival, the choice was easier than treading the road to the Great Beyond itself. Gogo hated that and everyone would get it—me, my older girl cousins and my sister.

“Khulu must take his meds and he can’t do that on an empty stomach,” shouted Gogo simultaneously attempting to contain her annoyance on the Lord’s Day. “It’s very wrong, you know. I wonder what type of tree you children are. God will punish you… You’ll also grow up and your children will do the same to you.” And with that, she too was out, following Khulu, a very comical scenario—arriving one after the other like train carriages. Khulu’s patience, especially on Sundays, ran thin. When Gogo was taking her precious time dressing up, Khulu was gone. If the tea was cold—meaning, according to his standards, if it wasn’t steaming hot and burning the tongue—he sent it back. As such, on Sundays, Gogo had no patience for us either, us—the late-church-coming imbecile grandchildren.

When the call is over, I laze around the apartment replaying it again and again, over and over. Have I not been paying attention? If Gogo can’t walk more than a hundred meters on her own, surely age has caught up with her. Or maybe my absence exaggerates the change. Also, this time she subtly sneaked in what I believe are her desires to see me bring home a wife soon. I’ve never conversed with Gogo about women. Hardly. If ever we did, I brought it up, probably as a joke in passing. She always said to focus on school, my books and to pray without ceasing. Never anything about girlfriends. Only Khulu, but also not directly with me.

Khulu would give advice to Mbona, Khulumuzi, my cousins or any of the young men who came to the house and were met, sometimes as parting words, with unsolicited wisdom of getting and keeping a woman. In most of these sessions, although young, I was a constant attendee. I soon discovered that during my juvenile years, whenever they sent me to get something random during these ‘The Talk’ conversations, Khulu was probably getting deeper and juicier. Shameful of them to get rid of me like that.

Gogo is now asking when I’m bringing a woman home. And the Gogo I knew—my Angeline, as I liked to call her by her first name—is now dependent by the very definition of the word. Simply put: I’m an adult now. While this I know, and can never run from, moments like these make that reality more pronounced, often taking my thoughts to places I wish not to contemplate.

Being in the diaspora, hailing from a country like mine—one with a scarcity of opportunities for her children to make a basic living—comes with an expectation: to hustle for the family back home. Gogo tells me she wants a birthday cake. I know exactly what that means. She also tells me schools are opening soon and the children will commence studies. I know what that means too. On each call, the list varies. Recently, I recall these: the front perimeter wall has fallen; there’s food, but perishables and meat can’t be stored like rice, beans, or mealie-meal, so fresh supplies are needed every other week. Fresh vegetables too. The solar lights need upgrading—the battery no longer holds power. Maybe a TV would be nice. A small flatscreen, of course—the other houses in the village have them. Meli, your nephew needs phone data; he uses it for school research. Nomsa and Makhabothi, your other nephews, have a school trip to Chipangali Zoo. Oh, and water. Sometimes the city council doesn’t supply any, so we end up fetching it from far away or buying it from the water vendors’ trucks. Water vendors, when did that become a thing? Without a man around the house, someone has to help transport the water containers. And the rains came too. It’s planting season, you know how that goes. Because I lived with Gogo in the village, I know my purse must answer this unspoken ask.

Many of Gogo’s children and grandchildren migrated to foreign lands, hence the plight of lifting Angeline’s burdens lies not with me alone. However, again, it brings to the surface my immediate reality and that of Gogo—all this responsibility and expectation screams that I’ve grown and Gogo is living her late years. I worry too about the irony: me being abroad but still finding myself echo the same sentiments as the people at home; that things are hard and money is playing hard to get with me. The expectation says to me, or as I wish life were, that being on the other side should mean better for those at home.

How long does Angeline have? I ask not because I want to, but because where I stand, although in the free world, the land of dreams and opportunities, my state still denies me leeway to see her anytime I so desire, or at least, once every year. Before Mom passed, I know she would have loved for Elijah and Chichi — my young brothers — born in this land of glorified cheese and fast food, to visit the motherland, and see where me and her were born, bred and buttered. Mom would have wanted Gogo to embrace these two youngins and bless them. To tell them stories about old times, just like she used to for me, my sister and my cousins back at the village.

In IsiNdebele, we say, “umlomo uyaloya, the mouth bewitches.” For fear of being the metaphor, I will speak no further on the demise of life. But, maybe acknowledging and putting in perspective that prospect is not bad either. Because, between me and time, age is failing my Angeline.

So, as I strive to set my house in order, I pray to God and plead with fate and time that, of my heart’s desires, I may be counted worthy of their grace. And maybe, just maybe, Gogo, Elijah, Chichi and I will sit on the now cracked, maroon-polished concrete veranda at Hyde Park Methodist Village, sharing a Coke and firewood-stove-made scones, laughing about former years and dreams of tomorrow.