My New Reality - The Demise of Grandma (Aluwa Aku) - Part 1
Dear Friends,
I lost my grandma on Saturday the 11th of June 2022. Or was it on Friday the 10th? Honestly I am not sure, but I heard the news on the 11th. You see, when she passed, my mom instructed everyone to keep me in the dark. She was looking out for me, because she didn’t want me to harm myself. I am quite family oriented and take to heart whatever happens in my family. Since I lived alone in the States and other members of my family were scattered over the globe, mom knew I would have no one to console me.
On Friday night/Saturday morning I spoke with this guy I was in a talking stage with (let’s call him Tom and if anything comes out of it I would let y’all know). I then spoke with my first sister. I also called my second sister and was on a conference call with her and her boyfriend. It was a good night and we all spoke for a while. At about 3:30am that night, I finally got ready to sleep.
I had been on several calls for at least 6 hours and I was exhausted. For some reason, I decided to check my WhatsApp. I then saw a status post from my uncle that made me freeze. It read ‘irreplaceable mother, Aluwa Aku, May your soul rest in the bosom of the Lord.’
The News
I was confused. I knew my grandma had suffered a stroke about 5 days before, but she was not deceased. Or was she? I immediately texted my second sister who was my gossip mate. She always gave me the ‘tea’ on whatever was happening.
I got on a call with her and spoke casually for a few minutes then asked her if she had spoken with mom. She said she did a few hours ago. I then casually asked her about our grandma. ‘Mama is fine’ she said. I asked her if grandma was able to talk yet since the stroke had taken her ability to. “Not yet,” my sister replied. At this point, I felt a bit calmer because I knew if anything happened to my grandma, my sister would let me know. Or so I thought.
I informed my sister about the status update from our uncle and asked her to reach out to mom. She said she was unable to at the moment (her line had been blocked from making calls for some weird reason). It was about 4am and I needed to go to bed. However I knew I would not be able to sleep till I heard directly from my mom about the status of my grandma’s health.
Since my sister was unable to reach out to mom, I began calling her myself. I gave her about 10 missed calls before she finally reached back. Then I asked her how grandma was. There was a long pause, then my mother goes “I love you and I want you to prepare your heart. You are currently alone and have no one to console you …” there were other things she said but I honestly couldn’t process it anymore. My mom did not have to say anything else. I knew the answer to my question then. My grandma was gone.
I heard a piercing sound and a loud cry. It took a few moments before I realized the sound was coming from me. I know my mom was saying something else and offering some consolation. I know I gave her some replies but I am honestly not sure what I said. My mom and I got off the call and the next couple of hours were like a blur.
I reached out to two of my close friends but the calls went to voicemail. I reached out to Tom and it went to voicemail. I called this other guy that once asked me out but it didn’t work out and he picked the call. He said he would reach out later during the day (although he never did).
At this point, it was 5am and I was outside my apartment. I was choking indoors and needed some air. Walking around my neighborhood at 5am was not the wisest decision, but I was not thinking of ‘being wise.’ All I knew was that I couldn’t stay for a moment longer indoors. I had my phone in a ‘no disturb’ mode and didn’t realize I had several calls from my siblings and uncles. At about 6:30 I went back to my apartment and saw I had several missed calls from my family. All were reaching out because mom told them I was taking the news pretty hard.
Logic Vs Emotions
I had not slept all night and was super tired so I decided to get some sleep. This proved tough to do because each time I dozed off I would abruptly wake up gasping for air and screaming and then burst into tears. This happened almost every 20 minutes about 4 - 5 times.
At about 10am, I realized that I would not be able to get some sleep and I had some work to do. I had three pending client work (I write for some clients) that were due by 11:59pm on Saturday which I needed to complete. I had already started writing the needed pieces during the week but I had hoped to complete them by Friday or at the latest Saturday noon. It was quite difficult to concentrate.
I was on my laptop, trying to complete the job when I dozed off. I had about three hours of uninterrupted sleep till I jumped from my sleep again gasping for air. After a few moments when I had calmed myself down, I checked my phone. I had more missed calls from my family and a couple from my friends that I had called the night before. I also had some messages from my first brother where he was screaming at me. He brutally told me that he was upset with me and ‘did not like what I was doing.’ He said grandma lived a full life and her death should not be something to cry about. He said no one lived forever and we all should pray to live the kind of life grandma lived.
You see, all he said made sense. Logically, it made a lot of sense. My grandma lived a good life. She was hardly sick and she was quite agile for her age. She lived in the city in Abia state where we had a house for the extended family and she was the landlady. We also had a borehole in that house where she sold water. She walked to the market (about 30 minutes walk) close to the house when she needed stuff. She even saw her great grandkids (my mum is a grandma). She lacked nothing and her kids provided all she needed. So logically, everything my brother said was reasonable. But try as hard as I did, that did not stop me from feeling numb.
Now as I write this, I understand to an extent why I felt the way I did. For was it not Vincent Van Gogh that said ‘Emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.’
It has been proven time and time again that emotions trump logic. You see I know it would not have been easy for my brother to say the things he said no matter how hurtful. He genuinely thought he was helping me but all that did was push me away. When I saw those messages, I had no energy to muster a response so all I sent was a ‘thumbs up’ to show the message was received. I did not care that no one lives forever. I did not care that my grandma lived a fulfilled life. All I thought of was how she would never see my own kids, how I had not seen her in 8 years and would now never see her again. Ever … to be continued
Dear friend, this experience was hard to pen down, and it might seem very raw because I wrote without filtering my emotions. I will be sending the second part of this story tonight. Thank you for reading, and please consider sharing this story so that others can subscribe and join the family!
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