When the ‘good ones’ leave you with not even a farewell chance

When people talk about closure in relation to the death of a loved one, I often wonder what clear signs are there to show to the bereaved that they have finally found closure. Does finding closure mean that the pain of losing that person no longer exists or that the regrets that may be present in the mind of the bereaved have been assuaged sufficiently so that he no longer have any sense of ‘what-ifs,’ however long after the death of his beloved? I put down my thoughts here not knowing if closure is what I actually seek, but strangely I feel that by writing I would be able to reduce the weight of the increased torment my heart has been going through over the past few days.

My paternal grandmother, Mrs. Ramatu A.K. Sado died about 11 years ago. She had been very old, certainly in her eighties, although no one seemed to know her exact age. An uncle had announced the sad news to me on the telephone. “What I’m about to tell you is heartbreaking, especially to you, but you must take heart,” he had said. “Your mother is dead… I mean Iworigida is late.” I must have been numb and without movement for 10 or more minutes before I recovered sufficiently to tell my uncle’s wife who had come downstairs what news I had just received. I was inconsolable the rest of the evening.

Mama had been the only mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, sister, brother, and what have you, that I had known from the moment I became aware of the people around me. But prior to her death, I had last seen her four years previously. In-between, I had been ‘too busy’ ‘growing up,’ trying to get my independence, going to school, etc, to see her. I often sent her provisions, but I kept shifting the date of my visit to her. For that I was enraged, angry…with myself for ‘betraying’ my mother. For weeks I beat myself for being a ‘bad’ grandson, for not caring enough for the woman who many could swear was my biological mother. She had left and I never went to say goodbye. My anger with myself increased each time I played back in my mind’s eyes the part of her life I had been privy to. Mama was the dotting, protective ‘cat’ who could scratch and tear apart anyone who messed around with her darling Jibril. I remember her as the scrawny woman with eternally wizened fingers and ‘that voice’. That is how I could describe her voice, neither shrill, nor baritone. Neither, sonorous, nor whatever. Not pitched. It was to me, just ‘that voice’. She was the little woman who was popular around the four Egor villages and much farther, as a trader in pap, salt, sugar, banana and other provisions. And I was famous as the ‘little man’ she took along wherever she went.

She had several other grandchildren but I was her favourite, the one who even in his teens long after I had left the village, she would keep a piece of meat, a morsel or a spoon of rice for when I was away, while the other grandchildren ached with envy. Although she was a Hausa–Fulani maiden from Kano when she got married – Iworigida, her pet name being the Hausa word Uwar Gida (mother of the house) – to my grandfather, her accent was neither Hausa-coloured nor Afemai-coloured. She never totally spoke Hausa or the Afemai language without her famous code-mixing and code-switching. She spoke no English, but long before I encountered the colloquial “watcha mean?,” Mama had popularized “Watdu mi” – her regular refrain whenever she was pissed with anyone or at anything – mostly in my defence. Till date I still tell myself that by my five years absence prior to her death, I had not done enough to give the woman who “carved a future for me where there was hardly a present” enough to smile about in her grave.

Mama died at a ‘ripe’ old age, but my cousin, Alexander, died in October 2010, a mere child, a baby, ‘my baby’. He died three months to his 10th birthday. On Wednesday afternoon, Alex had been rushed back ill from boarding school. The family doctor later diagnosed him with typhoid. By the following Monday the family decided his condition wasn’t improving and took him to a Federal Medical Centre in Lagos. That afternoon, he slipped into a coma and by Thursday morning, my Alex was gone. My best friend had gone forever and I wasn’t even by his side to will him not to go.

I had been working flexible hours at the time and so I had time to look after his younger sister each time she came back from school, while the mother was permanently with Alex at the hospital and the father was doing the running around. As a result I could not go to the hospital. Moreover, I was confident my baby would get well and come home to me. He never did. For several days after his death, the mother, with whom I have an exceptionally close relationship would cry and I would console her. She would ask me: “Jibril, go and bring back your baby now, or don’t you love him anymore?” I would look at her, misty-eyed, not daring to shed a tear – I had to be strong for her. Thereafter, I would go into my room and for several minutes, cry and cry before coming back to look after her again.

Alex had been my best friend in the house, the only person with whom I could exchange glances and we would both instantly send discreet messages to each other. He was the one perpetually by my side when I was ill, bringing me unsolicited cups of water, asking if I had taken my medicines, what I wanted to eat, if he should get me a bottle of Coca Cola or a cup of tea. When he was home on holiday from school he slept many nights on my bed than he did anywhere else. We shared everything and shared similar interests in movies, music, sports, et al. When he was naughty or proving plain difficult, I was about the only one who could talk to him. He was intelligent – very intelligent – and wise beyond his years, and I adored him for that. He was the one who could tell you all my secrets – the people I call or who call me, who was my girlfriend, what I was feeling…. We were kindred spirits, an unbreakable tag-team, and everyone knew it.

I was – and still am somewhat – convinced that my presence at his bedside could have given him more will to live. It’s a blame I still can’t get rid of. The day after his death, when we went to the mortuary to collect the corpse for burial, I rubbed his head and tickled his feet, hoping that our special chord would connect and he would get up from what must have been a 24-hour slumber. He didn’t. And I have been grieving. He was such a terrific, multi-facetted kid and there are constant reminders of him for me in movies, pictures, books, social discussions, sports, attires, and so on.

Much of these details of my anguish about my grandma and ‘my baby’ have largely remained hidden in the innermost crevices of my tortured mind’s diary until Tuesday, June 21 2011 when the crushing news came to me of the death of Mrs. Aisha Bright-Aikhegbe (nee Okponobi) who died that afternoon. She had been battling cardio-vascular ailments for a few months and had been recovering impressively only for sudden complications to force her to be rushed to a teaching hospital where she died that Tuesday afternoon. The previous Tuesday, I called to tell her that I would be visiting (having not visited her for three weeks). She sounded well and I was even more confident she had ‘turned the danger corner.’ She even teased me, saying that until I showed up at their house, she didn’t believe I was coming. We laughed about it and I reiterated that I would come. I never made it and I still kick myself for being away from her for that long prior to her passing away.

Sister – as I called her – and I had only met about three years ago. She was an established defence/police affairs correspondent for AIT while I was a struggli

ng security/crime reporter for one of the national dailies. Once she knew that I was a son of Weppa Wanno, Edo State, like her, she made sure that we became inseparable, calling me to come along with to all the places where the juicy news stories were, linking me with contacts from whom I could make more money, especially as my newspaper had refused to issue me employment letter. On account of her feisty loyalty to me, some of her journalist friends whom she had known for years held her in malice as they felt she was too concerned about me to their disappointment. Her constant mantra was: “You all have your Igbo or Yoruba brethren, but he is the only Afemai youngster I have on this beat and I can’t help it if you guys don’t like how I treat him.” And she kept her loyalty to me intact. As she did with everyone else she was close with. She always demonstrated an altruistic concern to the wellbeing of those she knew, often putting her own interest secondary.

As we grew closer, she had no problems confidently introducing me as her brother to those she met. And I was more than happy and proud to refer to her as my sister. As a good dresser, a jovial, relatable and amiable woman with an unpretentious sense of humour, she was always a standout personality at press conferences and among her peers. Sister was the confidant to whom I spoke about some of my problems and who urged me to be prayerful. She was a very intelligent woman with whom I could discuss a host of issues – politics, music, literature and the arts, philosophy, religion, gender, history, biology, economy – bar sports and to some extent, movies.

She was also a devoted mother to her children and a strong family woman in general. The day following her demise, I called at the house early in the morning. As soon as I crossed the threshold, Daniel, her soon-to-turn-four son said: “Uncle Jibril, give me your new phone to play game.” I replied that my ‘new phone’ was gone, to which he frowned. Of course, the phone had been gone and it had been replaced with another one. But his request brought fresh tears to my eyes: The phone was replaceable, but never so his mother who, had she been there, would have said: “Uncle Jibril, abeg give my Daniel your phone to play with o.”