The Tragedy of Being Alive.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash.

Mama calls my name, and I am transported to reality.

Before Papa died, we had a different way of communicating. It was apparent to anyone keen enough to see that we not only shared blood ties, but we also shared heritage, ancestors, and spirits, all roaming and living in the same parts of our bodies.

Her stretch marks were mine. They danced along my thighs in the same way hers thundered down her hips.

I was fat and thick in all the places she was fat and thick. Maybe that is why it was so easy for us to speak with our bodies, to communicate without words, to define moments with nods of the head, silent pats, and our eye movements, and to laugh without the stretching of our lips.

“Are you not done pounding? You’ve been here for too long, nne’m.”

I can taste the concern in her voice; it carries a still sorrow, the same one clogging my throat at this moment.

It reminds me of the night Papa passed away in the witness of the moon and in the back of our hut.

She adjusts her wrapper and fixes her palms at the base of her neck very close to her chest.

“I’m almost done,” I respond hastily, my voice all shaky and tiny. I don’t look up because tears swell in my eye.

These days I find that they are constantly leaking, always pouring, always giving to the earth that took everything from me.

She stands for a moment and regards me while I pound the akwu as efficiently as I can; we both know the soup is to keep life going.

It is more of a ritual than a meal.

To remind us that life keeps going and those alive should move along with it too, that we must plant our pain firmly on our back and move once life beckons that it is time to move. It reminds us that hunger and wants never pause for any tragedy.

She takes the pestle from my hands and sits gently beside me in the faded wooden chair.

Papa fixed this stool. I suddenly think a part of him must still reside somewhere in its embers, fading away each day.

Then, scooping some of the extracts and squeezing its juice from it with her bare hands, she says, “I nwa ka” you have tried. I want to ask; Have I? But I don’t.

Her words sit in the comfortable silence between us, holding a heavy timbre and a subtle message that says Thank you for not dying with your father. I don’t respond.

After a few minutes of listening to her slow but sure breaths, I nod, then hurry away on my feet before our grief eats us whole.

I take aimless walks around the street and question my sanity.

Maybe I, too, died along with Papa that night, and all that is left of me is this shell of a body living every day in betrayal, and with grief so big it could swallow the world.

It is absurd. Obscene even. How can one begin to comprehend? At the back of my eyelid, Papa is alive. He is not feeding the earth I walk on, Not laying as still as the dark six feet below. But rather, he is laughing at me as I take a quick sip of his palm wine and scrunch up my face because it is not as sweet as I imagined.

He is scolding me with gentle love when I dash my foot and bruise a knee. His laughter is vibrating somewhere in my belly.

I swear, he is so alive. So how can he be dead?

I decide that the difference between life and death is the one who remains.

At the end of the day, life has no meaning. It takes pride in watching us attempt yet and fail to define it.

I decide the purpose of life is to die, and loving is how we die. I decide that some pain is worth it, but some are not.

Maybe the pain of mourning Papa is worth it because it also means I experienced his force, life, and love.

And when I get home, the aroma of ofe akwu greets my lungs. It stirs up something I didn’t know still existed, and If my belly knew more than sorrow, it would have lurched for the food and gobbled it up. Instead, I walk into the kitchen to find the shrunken image of my mother on the floor beside the burning stove.

I regard her for a few long minutes, then I walk to her, crouch beside her, and take her hands in mine.

Her body goes stiff for a minute, she recognizes my presence, and then her wrapper flies to her wet eyes, and she gives me a small smile which I return with tears brimming in my eyelid.

We cook the rest of the meal in utter silence and perfect harmony, not talking but yet communicating, just like the old days.

When the meal is ready, we dish it out and place it on the table, then sit around the dining table for the ritual, “nne’m, can you please pray,” Mama says; it sounds like a question, but what it is, is a firm instruction—don’t lose your faith.

I close my eyes and mutter a few words of thanks. She follows with a series of resounding but defeated Amens at appropriate places.

Once the prayer ends, I look around the small room we are sitting in. I see how it seems to thin into itself as if the walls were closing in on us in little movements, but we have no idea at all.

There is an empty hole Papa used to occupy that will never be filled; Oxygen with his name all over it which he will never breathe.

This space will be full of longing and memories but not any tangible substance anymore.

Beside me is an empty seat that would never know the taste of his buttocks again. I sigh.

As if Mama can hear me, she breaks into an angry sob, and I look at her, alarmed. Then I follow.

Soon, we are holding each other from across the table and feeding the earth with our cries.

My feeble legs lead me to where she sits. It aids me to climb the top of Mama’s lap, and we stay there for God knows how long, holding each other, just breathing and living, breathing and living.

Her hands go to my hair and thread through its thickness slowly, her calm voice sings quietly, and it dispels the loud voice of grief ringing above us.

I close my eyes, and we fall asleep right there with the now cold plates of rice and ofe akwu staring blackly at our faces.

By the time I wake up, the sun is peeking through the curtain, and the first few dim rays harshly greet my eyes.

A gentle breeze is carrying the smell of stale food all around us, and Mama’s eyes are dancing gently on my face. I think about the fact that her legs must be aching.

She clutches me tighter to her chest.

She whispers into my ears, “Nne’m thank you for being alive.”

I nod and hug her so tightly for a second. Then I say, “Mama, let the dead bury their dead.”