I thought I knew that death isn't something I can get used to until I REALLY found myself in a spot that made me realise I knew nothing about not getting used to death.
People die. Actually, all living things will eventually die. You too. Did I just shock you? I apologise. My mom reckons I don't handle death all too well. I have been affected by four family deaths in the past 11 years, so she knows what she's on about.
My first experience of death came in 1999 when my uncle just died within days of our 2nd Democratic elections. It was weird. I was sad. This is someone I have sparse memories of and I still don't quite know where the bad feelings came from until I recognised them as guilt. Guilt at the memory of having him, about a week prior, ask me to go buy him something at the shops and in a disgruntled huff, I snatched the money and went to make the purchases. This may seem odd. But when you can't apologise for rude behaviour to a living being who has the option to forgive or not, it makes it near torturous to have an apology fall on dead ears.
Years later I got news of my paternal grandmother having suffered a stroke and landing up in hospital. I panicked but I knew that strokes don't necessarily mean death. I kept being grateful to an ex boyfriend who had made it possible for me to have spent some time with her while she was still healthy. I remember him dropping me off at her house and I found her alone and she hadn't yet eaten. So I whipped a quick meal (spaghetti, mixed veggies and chicken) for us and we had dinner. When I left, no one had come home yet so I told her to lock the house. That was the last conversation I had with her. When she got worse and couldn't talk as a result of the stroke and got shifted from one hospital to another, I knew it was BAD. And then I just stopped going to the hospitals until I dreamt of her asking me when I would visit. It just turned out that my uncle, an avid smoker, had been taken to the same hospital that she was in. So my mom and maternal grandmother went with me to the hospital. My uncle was there cos he had skipped a few TB check ups and found himself in a grim position. So we started off at his ward and then all went to go see my paternal gran. Even with all the problems between my parents my gran loved my mom like a daughter. The visit was still hellava disturbing though. Seeing her just blinking with an oxygen mask on was gut-wrenching to say the least. And then she looked me dead in the eyes and tried to talk. The frustration on her face at not being able to talk was enough to slit my soul in half and leave it out for the sun to dry it up and kill it. Mom told her not to try to talk just yet cos she was hurting herself. So she gave up and not once did she take her eyes off me. I cried so hard. So long. She died that night.
And in the weeks following her funeral, my maternal grandmother also just started getting ill all of a sudden. Doctors diagnosed her with all sorts of things. She couldn't eat, couldn't drink liquids and just struggled to breathe. My cousin struggled with her all on her own most nights. She was the one who woke up when my gran was suffering from pains she couldn't explain and she had to help her breathe when she ran out of breath. I remember only ONE instance where I felt useful. She called out for me cos she couldn't bath herself. The rag got too heavy and I bathed and dressed her. I bargained with God so many times, I ran out of bargaining chips. And it was when I ran out of them that my cousin took her to a specialist and I had to go to my dad's house. I went to work the next day and just as I was contemplating going to her house after work, my mom called me asking for my dad's numbers. I kinda breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't suddenly say: "Ouma is gone". So when my dad came home and went straight to the kitchen and came back with a big tumbler of water and told me that my grandmother had passed away, I heard nothing and took no breath for what felt like forever. I just didn't understand. Like, I was so confused. And when I came to, I had a panic attack and I guess that was what the sweet water was for. Mom's good. She knows me well. My gran knew me even better and thought it better for me to enjoy a day I treasure more than any other (my birthday) and to rather hear of her death over the phone than seeing a coroner pull her body off to the mortuary. She at spent my birthday with me moving from the bedroom and sitting with me in the lounge while the rest of the family had my cake. It felt good. I was happy.
It was hard though. Eight weeks prior, I had just lost my other gran. It snowed a few days after her death and that just made me want to wake her up even more. The first snow fall in Johannesburg in something like 40 years or something.
Three years later, my cousins and I found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. Our uncle that we lived with in my maternal grandmothers house fell ill again. And again it was as a result of having skipped 13 TB injections in his treatment. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 2005. He survived TB twice. You know when you take things for granted? Like: "ah well, he will make it...he always does". That was my attitude. And because I was unemployed (I say unemployed because I didn't work every day) I was the one taking care of him. Making sure he took his medication, bathed him and made him food. I was on the ball until he got worse and mom had to leave her job to help me out. And I remember that there were days where I would forget to give certain pills. I don't know how I forgot, but I did. I mean, with ARV's and a host of other MDR-TB pills, I just lost track of it all. After weeks of praying harder than I have in my entire life, and him wanting to die because he just couldn't stand the pain anymore, he got his wish.
My cousin and aunts had gone to see him at the hospital after my mom could not get him to breathe on his own and had to send him there for a few intakes from the oxygen tank and a drip. He had asked them to take him home with them when they left. Of course, my aunt told him that they couldn't take him home. So he told them that he would go home anyway. He only lasted a night there and told my aunt and cousin that he wished I was not working (I had just found a full-time job a few days before) so that I could continue taking care of him when my mom was not around. Those were his last words at the ring of the "visiting hours are over" bell.
This death in particular was the hardest I ever had to go through. It still is. The what-ifs are endless. What if it was because of my forgetting to give him his meds on time? What if I hadn't worked and he was able to be home with me like we did for three months? I slipped into a dark dimension and was diagnosed with clinical depression. I didn't cry much at his funeral. I was too dead. I still kind of am. It just still doesn't make sense. It was so sudden. Like, the Grim Reaper got too excited with that sickle, you know? And because I didn't recognise him in his coffin, I have no recognition of his death. Except that there's an obituary in my Bible and that his room is empty.
It doesn't make sense. 8 months later, I still can't wrap my head around it. I guess it will never make sense, really. *shrug*
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