Packing up my mother's things was the hardest thing I've had to do this year.
First, it didn't feel right going through her things, opening up boxes, drawers, handbags.
I felt like she was gonna come in anytime and ask -why are you going through my things?-
My heart felt heavy, weighty. I knew I needed to do it but I needed help.
Some ten years over ago, my mother's sister got sick and died. I wasn't told until the day I finished my KCSE exams.
(Though a classmate who had finished her exams earlier and knew about it had had the brilliant idea to send me a condolence card with a warning not to open until my exams were over. Of course I could see the words sorry for your loss as plain as day through the envelope. I know I made a mess of my remaining papers but oh well, it was well meaning.)
My aunt was very beautiful. Among my shushu's daughters I thought aunt Wangeci was the most beautiful one and it didn't help that she was a beautician and knew exactly which brand of ponds to use. When I was small I would stare at her until she shouted at me to stop it.
After a stint in South Africa she came back and a few years later she fell sick and died.
When I came home, to the house she had shared with my mother, I found a pile of clothes dumped behind the house.
Her death had disoriented the family so much and I guess no one thought much about her clothes.
Her clothes.
She had beautiful clothes.
She wore silks, and now they were in a pile. Rain had soaked them through, then the sun had created streaks of stains across the once expensive fabric.
I remember thinking, death takes away someone's dignity.
This was the thought I had when mummy died.
So I wanted to preserve her dignity.
I wasn't going to bleh bleh until one day I would come back to the house and find perhaps a
strip of a favourite shirt of hers flapping against the gate.
Or perhaps a note she had written
Or worse, her furniture soaking in the Tropical rain.
When stuff happens, that's when you really know the kind of people you need around you. It's the people who show up.
I rang a friend and she came right away and we created a system.
Things to take to Shushu
Things for me to keep
Things to give away
Things to burn
Then Malembi came and made us lunch and my little cousins who are not so little any more came and helped unscrew beds and burn trash. My mother's cousins came too and I didn't have a moment to be alone.
It was three days of pure fatigue, but I was grateful that when I needed volunteers Jehovah sent them.
I cried a lot saying goodbye to the house that has been my weekend getaway since I came to live in Nairobi.
I have always imagined I would leave that house as a bride. My mother would be in a peach colored dress, the fussy neighbours would ask if we could afford a fancy wedding.
I guess that's not happening now.
What I have learned:
1. You never know how a particular death affects someone until it happens to you.
(I feel really bad for friends who have lost parents in the past and I just said pole and moved on with my life)
2. If someone I
know losses a loved one, I will have to be there with them, physically.
First, it didn't feel right going through her things, opening up boxes, drawers, handbags.
I felt like she was gonna come in anytime and ask -why are you going through my things?-
My heart felt heavy, weighty. I knew I needed to do it but I needed help.
Some ten years over ago, my mother's sister got sick and died. I wasn't told until the day I finished my KCSE exams.
(Though a classmate who had finished her exams earlier and knew about it had had the brilliant idea to send me a condolence card with a warning not to open until my exams were over. Of course I could see the words sorry for your loss as plain as day through the envelope. I know I made a mess of my remaining papers but oh well, it was well meaning.)
My aunt was very beautiful. Among my shushu's daughters I thought aunt Wangeci was the most beautiful one and it didn't help that she was a beautician and knew exactly which brand of ponds to use. When I was small I would stare at her until she shouted at me to stop it.
 |
| Aunt Wandia, Aunt Wangeci, My mother |
After a stint in South Africa she came back and a few years later she fell sick and died.
When I came home, to the house she had shared with my mother, I found a pile of clothes dumped behind the house.
Her death had disoriented the family so much and I guess no one thought much about her clothes.
Her clothes.
She had beautiful clothes.
She wore silks, and now they were in a pile. Rain had soaked them through, then the sun had created streaks of stains across the once expensive fabric.
I remember thinking, death takes away someone's dignity.
This was the thought I had when mummy died.
So I wanted to preserve her dignity.
I wasn't going to bleh bleh until one day I would come back to the house and find perhaps a
strip of a favourite shirt of hers flapping against the gate.
Or perhaps a note she had written
Or worse, her furniture soaking in the Tropical rain.
When stuff happens, that's when you really know the kind of people you need around you. It's the people who show up.
I rang a friend and she came right away and we created a system.
Things to take to Shushu
Things for me to keep
Things to give away
Things to burn
Then Malembi came and made us lunch and my little cousins who are not so little any more came and helped unscrew beds and burn trash. My mother's cousins came too and I didn't have a moment to be alone.
It was three days of pure fatigue, but I was grateful that when I needed volunteers Jehovah sent them.
I cried a lot saying goodbye to the house that has been my weekend getaway since I came to live in Nairobi.
I have always imagined I would leave that house as a bride. My mother would be in a peach colored dress, the fussy neighbours would ask if we could afford a fancy wedding.
I guess that's not happening now.
What I have learned:
1. You never know how a particular death affects someone until it happens to you.
(I feel really bad for friends who have lost parents in the past and I just said pole and moved on with my life)
2. If someone I
know losses a loved one, I will have to be there with them, physically.
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