Dedicated to Miriam’s Mom

 

It didn’t feel like death. It didn’t feel like the end. It felt… it felt like how I have felt for most of my life — one more moment saved into the memory bank of pain I hope to process, but know deep down I would never get to.

“Ehya, my dear, sorry,” a woman who smelled like ginger and warmth said, breaking me away from my thoughts as she reached out to offer a hug. I didn’t like being touched. But on this day, I couldn’t count the number of times it had happened. My usually nervous reaction soon went numb after the millionth unsolicited hug.

One person even went as far as tugging at my cheeks. “Eh,” she had exclaimed, “you’re such a beautiful girl, your mother’s carbon copy.” She giggled, and for a moment, I could hear the lump in her throat. I knew she was about to switch from giddy to mournful, as though having caught herself not grieving enough in front of the girl who just watched them bury her mother. “Your mother was an incredible woman,” she added, her voice quivering. She pulled the edge of her wrapper to her face and wiped what I hoped were real tears.
I nodded. Not sure how to respond to what I reckoned wasn’t even deserving of one.
“She always pulled people in.”
I nodded again.
“Ah, this is so painful.”
I scoffed in my head. Tell me about it.
“I wish she were still here with us,” she added and took a deep breath.

Through it all, I forced a smile. I wasn’t genuinely worried about the performativeness of mourning. I expected it. What bothered me was how it seemed like more people came to comfort me than they did my brother. Patriarchy, eh. The thought crossed my mind, and I smirked. I had been on my feet for most of the burial procession. I was exhausted, and to not dwell on the thought of losing her so much, some part of me was already thinking about getting back on the road to Lagos and heading to work. Yet for every minute I was about to let my thoughts drift away from her, someone walked up and reminded me. It irked me.

I was her daughter. She was my rock. I didn’t need the reminding that one of the best things to ever happen to me was no longer here. I wouldn’t be able to hear her cackle when she saw something funny on TV and tried to point it out to me. I couldn’t listen to her tell me incredible stories of her youth and how she met our dad. I won’t get to feel the warmth of her hugs — the only one I never felt uncomfortable receiving. I missed her more than I could ever say in words or express through tears. I missed her so much, crying for her felt too futile because eventually, tears stop. I missed her so much, even an ocean of tears would not be enough to express the hurt.

And I was hurting. Maybe they knew — but not in the way they expected.

“Eh, look at you, Miriam,” another voice broke through my reverie of painful metaphors. It was a male voice. A man not as old as my father, but old enough. He flashed me a familiar smile. “I remember when you were so little,” he gestured with his right hand as though petting an invisible child on its head.
I smiled. “Thank you for coming, sir.”
He smiled and shook his head. “So sorry for your loss. Your mother was—” He paused, sighed, and smiled again, “I am truly sorry for our loss.” And then he walked away.

I stared at him as he moved past a couple of people in clusters and then stood in front of my brother and father. I was sure I had heard all there was for people to say about who they thought my mother was to them, and none was unique. Yet, this man, his pause, his restraint caught my attention.

I wondered if there was something he remembered about my mother that he didn’t think appropriate to say, or if he was just better at reading my uninterested expression hidden beneath my fake smile? I wasn’t sure what it was, but my eyes remained on him in parts even as I nodded and replied perfunctorily to some other woman’s condolence.

Who was he? What did he know about my mother? Why did he stop himself from saying it? Those questions haunted me all through the procession. By the time I was back in our ancestral home, closed the door to my bedroom, and rushed into the bathroom to wash off the hundreds of bodily skin residues that were on me, something dawned on me. I turned off the shower. I closed my eyes and I remembered her face. Her smile. The warmth in her laughter. The kindness in her eyes. And I remembered a conversation we’d had some months before.

“Do you know why I always ask you to do so much around the house, Miriam?” she had asked. We were in the kitchen preparing a meal.
I chuckled, “Because your other children are lazy, abi?”
She laughed and shook her head, “Leave your brother, once he starts his bachelor life and hunger waya am finish, e go learn to cook.”
I giggled.
“No, the reason I always ask you to do a lot of things is because I know how much the distraction helps you.”
I turned to look at her, bemusement in my eyes.
“Yes, you’re my daughter. I know you better than you think. And I know that you process your feelings differently from others. You need time, and sometimes the time to do that might not be when others expect it.”

Those words re-echoed in my head as I stood transfixed in the bathroom. I gulped. Beads of water dripped from my head to the shower floor. I opened my eyes and almost as clear as day, I could see her standing in the distance: a smile on her face, wearing a red Iro and Buba attire, the last thing she wore to a friend’s son’s wedding four months ago. I realized in that moment that somehow she had sensed my discomfort during the procession. And through whoever that strange man was, and what he did when he didn’t finish his thought about her, she had managed to do what she always did: keep my mind busy — busy enough to not have felt the time pass by so quickly until I got home.

I closed my eyes and for a moment, I imagined her warm hug washing away the stickiness of all the other hugs I got. I missed her dearly. Far more than any amount of mournful tears would communicate. And just then, those tears came.

 

 

 

 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash