Late Letter Memoir

On the night of Good Friday Eve 2021, a dark shadow claimed your shadow grandma. God called out your soul and you had to let go. I force myself into believing it was a kindness, a necessary evil to take the cup of suffering away from you. For the three times I called to see how you were fairing on you couldn’t talk or I could hardly hear your voice; Mama and Grandpa said that you could neither stomach anything nor move from where you laid. Now your body is pale and cold, lifeless in a casket. The whole plot to your last breath was painful. I asked you to hold on a little longer, I wanted to see you and I promised to but the devil on my shoulder made me hesitate and I never showed up. I broke that promise and now memories are breaking me.
You are now a memory stuck in my mind, I pray that your picture may never fade and your voice not be foreign, I will never forget you. I know that you don’t know this, that your grandson is a sad poet, a storyteller who vibes to the poetry of the earth. I hadn’t thought of ever writing your eulogy but I will write one feeling broken, empty and defeated. I’ll tell your story. I wish you could read this and if not so maybe Grandpa will help you. In the modern world they’d call you semi-illiterate just because you didn’t school enough but I’ll say that your arithmetic game was strong and that for many you were a book keeper. Intelligence is drawn from the mother and I got mine from my Mama who definitely got hers from you and Grandpa (one plus one equals to one and that is what you two are). Both of you were there for us in the darkest of days, when I was too young to understand the patterns of life, when family had forsaken us into oblivion and I had confused God’s silence with God’s absence and for that I’ll always be grateful. Then will come the nostalgia, I’ll smile at the times when you were drunk when we visited and you’d try to cover up, which you sometimes did terribly. Or when you’d keep on talking and we didn’t know when you’d stop. Someone would say you had a drinking problem but I’d say that you made merry while you could because life is short. Well, you did make the best african beer, I’d always be off my head but I’d be always on my feet though I did struggle. You would insist on my brother and I staying but you know we get into minor fights for no reason at all but I think I get my temper from Grandpa. Sorry for the laziness but we sure had an appetite for food.
It is said that he who cannot accept death, cannot accept life.Grandpa says that it is what it is and what has happened is all done, that we should let you go for that’s everyone’s way, you just went ahead of us. He’s right though.  You’ve seen me grow into a man, I would have wanted you to see me graduate, become a young dealer, maybe marry and have a couple of great grandchildren for you, change the community for the better and much more but… you .. you’re gone too soon. You are now a story.
I love you Grandma, we love you Grandma. Your clock stopped ticking but somewhere else you gave chance to another heart to beat. I write with eyebags heavy from being sleepless but I will be okay. Goodbye “Tata” (Grandma).


Yours at heart,
Grandson Urban.