I came home expecting to see your smile, missing that front tooth you refused to fix because it “added something special.” I expected to hear your voice, that intense whisper with a cadence reminiscent of a centuries-old sage or Buddhist monk sharing a wisdom long lost to this world. I expected us to talk about your time away and my 30th birthday, about where life had brought us since we last met and where we hoped it would take us next.
The last time I saw you, we spoke of numerology and life paths, and you told me I was a seeker. And today, after news of your death, I find myself searching for answers. How did it happen? You called me two days ago from Bri’s phone, and I missed the call. Why didn’t I answer? What was more important than you?
The church women come to grandma’s house cloaked in sympathy with clasped hands & tear-streaked cheeks. They encircle her bedside, and weep and wail at the altar that lies between the cross and your grave with supplication and thanksgiving on their tongues.
If you were here, you would smile, half amused, half grateful, and tell me that these funeral traditions have been ours since the motherland.
Across the African continent, women gather in village squares to mourn the dearly departed, their singing, dancing, and weeping a compass guiding the spirit to the ancestral realm.
However, the death of the young garners no celebration. There is no singing, no dancing, and no feasting because a life taken so soon was not one well-lived.
When the church women serve us plates of platitudes and pound cake with bowed heads and quivering lips, I wish this were a tradition we kept. When they assure us that God don't make no mistakes, and that you are in a better place even though their hearts do not believe it, I wish they were at least honest.
I will not celebrate your death. I will not dance or sing and be glad for a life well-lived. Instead I will mourn it silently and solemnly as our ancestors did.
Had I known that our last time would be the last time, I would’ve held you a little longer, a little tighter, if for no other reason than to keep your wings from unfurling so soon.
Cousin, I will miss you til the earth folds in on itself and crumbles into nothing, and I will love you twice as long.