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My grandmother died a few days ago. Her death, like most deaths we hear of over the television screens and radio channels, was sad, but distant. My grandmother was a lot of things that simply meant "my father's mother". I did not know her. I did not love her. I did not care much for her. But I did not hate her.
When the news of her passing got to me that morning, I felt nothing. Insensitive has been a word some have used to describe me in the past, and quite frankly, I deserve that. Times like this make me aware of this adornment.
When my mother's mother died in 2015, I was broken. I watched the world fall and break through my heart. Her smell stayed on everything, her image on objects, her voice broke through walls and left barrels of tears on my sheets. I don't cry often. I don't know how to express vulnerability. This thing I consider strength has also been my weakness.
2015 was probably the worst year of my life, and someday I would write about it. Someday, with my words, I will snatch back my strength from it. My grandmother's death was one of the many things that snatched a chunk of me, and quite frankly, that hollow hasn't quite filled yet.
A few days ago, gunmen charged into a church and killed women and men for whatever reasons that simply justifies nothing. It was a sad story. But if there is anything I have learnt from being a Nigerian living in Nigeria, it is that we are expected to adjust to news like this. We are expected to lament about the wickedness of men, and move on from it. Snap our fingers and say, "Tufiakwa! May I never encounter such in my lifetime," while silently nursing in our minds the "thank God it wasn't anyone I know" thought, and continue with the immediate difficulties​ that face us.
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But there are losses, evenly folded into spears, that as distant as they are, are just as piercing. Losses like Ebuka's aunt who died in the shooting. There are no proper words to describe this loss, no words to describe how to begin to try to understand it. I didn't know her. But this, this broke my heart. It took me years back to 2015, and left me with a sore in throat.
Insensitive as I might be, I hope someday I would be able to reconcile my grandmother's death with hurt, with pain, with loss. But today, I would simply allow this feeling passage through to my heart. I would find strength in my weakness and hope that everyone who has lost someone would find the same. That BuBu's family would find the same strength to get through this too.
That someday we would learn to come home to ourselves and find peace with the unanswered questions, with loss, with pain; with vulnerability.
hiveblocks