About what happened last week

That morning, I had lingered outside the gate, making my walk from the car to the house deliberately slow and measured, unsure of how to greet the family friends in the wake of this death. I saw a few men talking at the garden and a few ladies by the casket sobbing. As I write I feel vaguely guilty that I had felt so little in those hours immediately following grandfather’s death. Our lives had never crossed much until my recent stay at the same house. I have grown up knowing him only as a visitor, someone who is so familiar; yet unknown.

When evening came, all the floors downstairs were occupied by the people from the surrounding communities, who had arrived to pay their condolences and provide support for the grieving family. Most of those present were women, and most of these were older women, for whom a death, which did not emotionally affect them, was an opportunity not to be missed. It was nonetheless a chance for them to get together, to fuss, to gossip and to reminisce about the deceased person, even someone they had not really known.

I stood before the casket several times when nobody particularly noticed, and looked at the photograph displayed by the side. He was really a handsome man, I decided. I have always thought that father is also good looking, though in my opinion, his regular clean features lacked openness and no sense of the unpredictable in his nature.

Unpredictability; to me are the qualities that elevated ordinary beauty to something irresistible. Don’t you think so?

During the night when everyone was quiet and asleep, thoughts of grandma came more often than I had expected. The white casket, the beautiful flowers and the continuous murmurings of condolence were reliving themselves as they reminded me of her funeral barely two months ago. It is at this time, awkwardly at grandfather’s funeral, that I really feel the lost of someone so important and realize more than ever, how much I miss her presence during the past weeks.

For a long time, I stayed under the sheets and watched the ceiling in the dark. At grandfather’s house they give me a big mattress, but I remained still on only one side, not used to spreading myself out and taking more room than I needed.

The rain has come now as I sit here writing this. I listen, relieved at the rain, at its breaking of the silence outside which I am now so used to. The rain is drumming hard and hollow on the roof, and as I listen, I hear the steady downpour splashing as it hit the ground beneath, such a variety of noise the same water is responsible for.

I close my eyes and listen again; wondering about grandma, what she is doing and about grandfather, where he is at.

And if both of them were happier now to be away from home tonight?

Peace be with you