I.

It is a Tuesday afternoon and I am so exhausted. Or at least as exhausted as a child can possibly be after a ‘tedious’ school day of learning and chatting with friends. I carry my bag and trudge up the flight of stairs to the top floor, while making a mental note to speak to my father about my day once I’m done eating lunch. I knock excitedly and wait for my aunty to open the door. Surprisingly, my cousin does and I am so pleased to see her as she hardly ever visits on weekdays. We hug and she asks me to tell her how my day went.  

Looking back on it now, I should have known something was amiss from the way she opened the door slightly, stepped out and hurriedly shut it behind her. She didn’t let me in first before she began speaking. I still do not know if she was sent to open the door to try to keep me at ease or she willingly did it because she was the only one who could muster the courage. Little did I know that the small talk she made at the door was a futile attempt at preparing me for the life-shattering news I was about to hear. 

*

Olufolarin is the name given to me by my grandmother. It means “God walks with wealth.”  Though it is my middle name, this is the name my father always called me. Many times, he even whistled it. In fact, I cannot recall him calling me Boluwatife. It was just our thing. My mother used to whistle it as well, but she never quite got it like him. His whistling had a melodious touch to it and made me feel special.  

It is also a sound I will never hear again. 

This is what coming to terms with the loss of a loved one entails. A sum of voices we’d never hear again, phone numbers we’d never dial again, songs we’d never listen to again, and bodies we’d never hug again. Our lives are forever changed because we got to experience the sheer light of their existence and suddenly, that light is doused. Left in its wake is a feeling which can only be accurately described as being thrust into the air and trampled on with a pair of wooden clogs just as you hit the ground.   

II.

I have always wondered where the term- ‘grieving period’ originated from. As if to say, grieving should have predefined start and end dates. Continuing to grieve after the ‘end date’ may be perceived as wallowing and refusing to just ‘move on’ with life (still unsure of what this phrase means). Most importantly, who even comes up with these rules anyway? Who determines when the end date should be? Would I still be badgered with “God knows best” and “Stop mourning like those without hope” if I don’t feel up to ‘moving on’ after 12 midnight on the end date? Or maybe it’s a canon event and not a person that determines the end of a grieving period. Or could it be the first time you laugh heartily after the loss? Not the courteous kind, but the kind of laughter that reverberates in the air, makes your cheeks hurt, and is mere moments away from making you cry happy tears. 

Who knows?

Whichever one it may be, I don’t think we ever stop grieving. Grieving all their unmaterialized dreams, milestones we will never be able to share with them, moments we should have cherished more, and pictures we should have taken.   

III.

When I think about my father, I have only pleasant thoughts. These thoughts block out his final days and briefly let me exist in a satisfying alternate reality. A reality in which he is here with us and our family is whole. A reality in which he is physically experiencing all the seminal moments in our lives instead of silently watching them play out like a movie. He had so much left to do.

Most times, I feel robbed. Robbed of him parenting me through the complexities of adolescence. Robbed of the sage advice he would have offered me through different stages of my life. Robbed of seeing him and my mother grow old alongside each other. Robbed of watching him dance to Weird MC’s Ijoya in such an intense fashion. You would think he was present in the studio when she recorded the song. 

Other times, I simply just want him back. I want to tell him how grateful I am to have been fathered by him. Play one more game of Whot! with him. Ask him to teach me how to fry Irish potatoes so perfectly—golden, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Let him know how much he inspires me with his kindness and the unassuming way he lived. Hear him whistle Olufolarin again. 

The day my father breathed his last, the dog in the next compound barked and barked for no apparent reason. People attributed the barking to dogs’ sixth sense which is thought to be associated with death. It was like the dog knew and understood the upheaval my world was about to face, even before I was aware of what had happened. 

*

One of the most poignant things about loss is the fact that time does not stand still. Not even for a second. Dawn remembers to break, the sun takes no days off, and dusk still comes. Nothing in the atmosphere openly acknowledges that your world has shifted, and uncertainty is about to become one of your best companions. Life just keeps going on as though everything is right with the world, even though you will never again hold the hands of one of your favourite people and anguish is all you truly feel.

You want to yell outside so badly, “My loved one has died! Can’t the sun see my pain? Why is it shining so brightly like nothing has happened?”

It is almost as if the Earth is asking you, “Yes, your loved one has died and so what? Do you want the world to stop moving for you?” In a way, it gives you a jolt because you eventually realise that if the world stopped every time a person died, it will literally never move again. So, it cannot stop for you. This jolt partly gives you the strength to finally get up and do something, regardless of how mundane it may seem. At least, you are on your feet and that in itself is enough. All you can do is hope and pray that they are at peace—the kind that can never be attained in this cold, cold world.

Loss pushes you to confront your own mortality. You realise how little you matter in the grand scheme of things and how capricious life truly is. You promise yourself that you would start living everyday like it is your last, resolve to be kinder to people and even decide to see more of the world. However, you are only human and you may not do all of these things. Life gets in the way and you even forget that you ever made such resolutions. You go back to living the way you always have until you hear about someone else passing away. Then, the cycle repeats.  

Time does not heal the heart-wrenching feeling that accompanies the loss of a loved one. It only makes it seem easier to deal with by tricking you into thinking that you have moved past it until the next time your chest tightens when you randomly remember something your loved one used to say. Only then do you realize grief is never-ending. It is a continuum. 

After my father got home from work, he would usually make me tea because he was so convinced that it helped me sleep better. Regardless of how late it was or whether I was already asleep, he would wake me up and make me tea. I always looked forward to our tea-drinking sessions as this was one of my favourite things to do with him. 

Thinking back on it now, the assurance and warmth of the gesture probably helped me sleep better, not the tea itself. He never gave room for his love to be second-guessed as his actions expressed it clearly and wholeheartedly. He wanted it to surround you completely. 

I am forever grounded by that.   

About the Author:

Boluwatife Alege is a Nigerian biomedical scientist and writer. Her areas of interest are music and women’s experiences. Her work has appeared in The Moveee Magazine and Document Women. She is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health at the University of Chester.

*Feature image by Matt Seymour on Unsplash