Teta

The last time I saw my grandmother’s house was years ago. We were having lunch following her funeral. After that the house was closed down and only a selected few were allowed the keys to enter it. It became more sacred than it had been when she was alive to oversee its running.

I remember the evening she passed away. I do not remember the day, date, year or time, but I remember the sequence of events that eventually led her body to be stored in the cold until the Friday she was buried. Or at least I remember what I did that evening, things I am yet to forgive myself for.

Funny how I now think of myself as selfish. Funny because I had always known I was a little selfish, yet I never regarded myself as such in the capacities I now reflect on. Growing up makes one look back at things through different lenses and makes the reality different than what it was previously thought to be. To me this reality becomes much more real and much more harsh. Yes, I had been selfish, I had deprived those who now matter most to me from what matters most to them, love, attention and the benefit of the doubt.

The evening my grandmother was to pass away I was out with friends having fun. This is not unusual for the young girl I had been, or any girl of my age at that time. Grandma was most probably sleeping at that time, or getting ready to go to bed. I do not remember who was sleeping over at her house that evening, her children and grandchildren had worked out a schedule to always have someone sleep with her in the room to keep an eye out for her. She was an old woman and had many health problems. My grandfather had passed away years earlier and we did not want strangers sharing her house with her. Thinking long and hard, I believe there was no one with her that evening and it was her maid that took notice of the changes that had come about her.

I was still chatting in my friend’s car in the garage under the building that my grandfather had built over 26 years ago to grant himself and his male children independence and security of residence when I noticed the unusual things going on in the building. It was too late for so much activity and certainly my cousin was not called in from miles away if nothing of concern was happening. And yet I was so taken by the conversation that I brushed off the activity as insignificant and not needing my attention and continued to converse into the night. When one of my cousins approached me and told me that grandma was really sick I brushed him off too, I was all too familiar with grandma being “really sick”, after all I had spent many nights by her side.

When I finally decided that it was time to head up home, I thought I would at least drop in to check out what was the case with grandma. The door to her apartment was widely open and the house had an eerie silence to it. Both of my cousins were in her room and she lay there on the bed pale and yellow. One of my cousins then helped her up to a sitting position so that she can breath better. I exchanged a couple of words with my cousins and walked up the remaining flight of stairs to our apartment. That was the last time I saw my grandmother’s chest filling up with air.

The next I saw her she was lying still on white sheets in a hospital ward where they rested her until all her children were able to come in and bid her farewell. Still then I did not realize the gravity of the reality and thought that her departure was of no immense consequence on me. I was so wrong. And I had to wait years to find out just how wrong I was. If only I could turn back time I would not call on her to life again, that would not be fair to her, she was in a lot of pain and suffering. I would be more sensitive to what she was going through that evening and would have at least stayed around with her longer than the couple of minutes I thought were sufficient. Now I realize how lucky both my cousins were to be the last two people to feel her warm, I could have been the third, but I was too entangled in my own self. I failed to understand the importance of a human being who had been through 80 years of life and who deserved more attention that she had received.