It’s 6:34
I was meant to write about something else today but I chose to write on grief.
I said it’s 6:34 because that’s the time I woke up today.
Grief is a funny emotion. It’s not something that people go “most times, when people lose someone, they act like this or they act like that.” Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know that there’s no this way or that way to act or feel when you grieve, till they grieve.
Grief is probably one of the most crooked paths there is to walk and our society (the Nigerian and African society) doesn’t recognise the fragility, frugality, and perpetuity of this path.
I lost my grandma in August. She was one of my closest family members. When my mum told me that her mum had died, I didn’t cry. I told her sorry and tried to decide between pampering her and giving her space (eventually went with the latter) then I went about my day. I went about my week. I went about my month.
I didn’t think about her a lot, my grandma that is. Her death was more of an attachment to whatever message I was trying to pass across.
“I can’t come because I’m lazy and tired and yeah my grandma died so I have to be sure my mum is okay”
“I don’t want to travel but I have to because my parents have a lot of things to do and my grandma also died so there’s that”
I think that made people think it was a distant relative so it wasn’t something I cared about. More so I felt guilty that I hadn’t mourned the way most people would expect me to because of the relationship we had.
There was always “are you okay?” “Are you eating?” “Are you sleeping?”
Valid questions following the reactions to that unfortunate May/June event
But I wasn’t okay and I wasn’t fine. I was sleeping like a sloth, eating like a glutton. But I apparently I wasn’t supposed to be doing those things because that’s what people who are fine do.
I remember the first day I cried my eyes out. It was on the 3rd of September. My mummy just showed me my grandma’s obituary. It was maybe 1 pm when she did, I cried till about 6 am the next day. I didn’t eat or sleep or pause.
The everything started becoming overwhelming. School was a lot
anyone who knows me well will know school is never a lot
Eating was a drag, talking to people was annoying
because what’s everyone so happy about when my grandma is not here
But I had to be civil in a sense. She was my grandma, not everyone else’s so they should be happy, and like should be easy for them, and they should want to eat and play and sleep.
My clock is ticking because work is piling and I’m in my final year and any slight mistake is an extra year in this school. So I started acting like everyone else so that maybe I could eventually feel like everyone else.
Me and guilt have been besties for a while and no one tells you about that. No one tell you that you’ll feel guilty that you’re not sad today. When past tenses slide off your tongue with ease. When the death jokes come a little too easy to you. When you sing the songs she liked and remember the things she said without battling a knot in your throat. No one tells you how jarring that is. That guilt like that can steal your sleep, steal your time, steal your peace.
With time someone else in close proximity to me lost someone or rather group of people in close proximity lost someone.
And I was happy. The happiness isn’t that he’d died obviously (no one deserves to die especially not at such a young age) but that I wasn’t crazy, and I’m not special. I think that’s what consoled me the most. That as foreign as this may seem, it’s so ordinary.
Now this particular death confuses me because I kind of also lost this person as well because I knew him but at the same time I didn’t because I didn’t know him know him. So now it’s “what right do I have to grieve?”
This is me asking me.
I wasn’t his friend or family but it’s a death I felt and I still feel, that still shocks me to some degree every time someone mentions it. But I’ve made peace with the fact that it’s not my place, if that makes sense.
Then it gets easier. Because though we don’t all talk about it a lot but we get through it together. You see yourself so many months ago in them and you know that they’ll be fine, or better at least.
I’m not fine. The first time I realised that was when I saw my cousin’s geotag. She had arrived in Lagos. It was so real then. The burial is really happening. People have started flying into the country. She’s really gone. I’m really going to travel, wear a white lace dress, carry a casket, seat front row (ish) and be expect to sob for 3 hours. Insane. This was almost 3 weeks ago.
I’m still not okay. I realised again this morning, by 6:34, when I woke to screams. Very familiar screams coming from a floor or two above mine. Familiar in the sense that I’ve screamed those screams before. I pray God consoles her, gives her strength, and makes her better, and I pray the same for those around her, and me, and for anyone who’s grieving or close to anyone who’s grieving.
But for whatever it’s worth, I hope I’m wrong and my prayers for the girl are misdirected.
I pray that God continues to give you the strength you need to handle this loss✨
this is such a beautiful write up. May God give you strength in your time of grief