Question 2

How do you understand what happened at the time?

How could I not? That year was not normal, a year I will never be able to forget. Finding out she’d passed almost didn’t even shock me. The right question? When did I accept what had happened? Because I don’t think I actually really grieved.

Mum dying didn’t need to be explained to me. I’d already gotten used to the change in routine. I’d already gotten used to dad dropping me to school instead of mum. I’d already gotten used to being in two different houses. I’d already gotten used to it being just me and dad at home all the time. I’d already spent majority of the year asking God morning and evening to heal my mum, and yet he didn’t. Instead I saw her change right in front of my eyes. She lost her voice. She started wearing wrist supports on both her wrists all the time. She lost her memory. Me being told she died did not need to be explained. I think I’d already started getting used to her absence, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the reality of it.

The day she died, I was at mum’s friends house so I arrived at the hospital with her. I remember getting to the ward and seeing bodies. Plenty people from church just posted at the door. I remember wondering what all these people were doing here, like nobody gotta go home? We walk through the doors and down to mum’s section. Her bed was on the end, right off the aisle and the curtain was closed. We went through it to see my dad, the nurse and my mum’s cousin, I think. In the bed lay mum, covered from head to toe and I immediately knew something was wrong. How? Because I was the only one who slept like that. The nurse pulled back the sheet and I remember everyone looking at me, like they were waiting for me to lose it. I think I cried, not because I wanted to but because everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to react. I don’t remember what happened after that though.

Fast forward to the day of the funeral. My cousins were over from America and staying at the house. It was nice having them over, because they brought so much life. That morning though, dad drove us to the funeral home in Balham. I remember us all walking in, with me in front. The lady inside guided us downstairs to where mum was. I remember there being two rooms. Mum was in the right one and it was lit up with candles. I walk in, followed by my cousins. The coffin was open with the cover leaning against the wall behind her. I remember looking at mum. She was so shrivelled and looked so old and I remember thinking ‘this ain’t my mum’. Part of me was waiting for this all to end and for this to be one big prank. I remember even hoping she would just get up. I think I tried to wake her up actually, because I reached out and touched her, but she was so cold.

After that, I just stood there and looked at her. My cousins couldn’t stop crying, but all I could do was stare. This might be when I realised my dad was no longer with us, because I got tired of the crying and had to direct my older cousins back up those stairs and out the funeral home. And there was my dad, waiting for us by the car.

During the service, I tried to make myself cry because everyone else was crying. And this was even after I had already gone up and said my little speech about the ‘best mum in the world’. It was not until we got to the cemetery and specifically the part of them lowering her down into the ground, that I genuinely started to cry. I think this is also the first and last time I saw my dad cry. It’s like we both realised at the same time that she was actually gone, and it was at this point that everything became real. After that, everything just started happening. The next thing I remember is sitting on the step of the stage at church, unable to do anything but watch everyone around me. This might actually be when I stopped being present.

I knew what had happened, I just didn’t wanna accept it. Who would? She was supposed to be here for life. She was supposed to see me grow. She was supposed to be my best friend. She was supposed to be here. I became so jealous of all those who still had their mum and had that relationship, because why couldn’t I have mine? I hear people get better from the same thing all the time. Not to say it’s everyone, but it can happen. I mean we talk about how ‘nothing is impossible for God’, don’t we? Why would God take her from me? He knew how much it would wreck me and yet he did it anyway. If there’s anything I don’t understand, it’s that. I was an only child. A child. I needed her. But he took her from me anyway.

How do I understand that?