Death in the family
A partly fictional story, from when we received news of my Godfather's death. It was the first death of someone very close to me and I remember it well. Each loss does not get any easier with time.
It was already quite late when she heard it. She had been asleep for at least five hours when the first ring came. The phone never rang this late, and despite how young she was, she sensed that it wasn’t good news. After several rings, she could hear her mother’s voice. She spoke softly, not wanting to wake the family, but the youngest daughter had already heard.
She made her way to the library, the room adjacent to her parents' room, and the room where the upstairs rotary phone was located. On her mother’s face, the nervousness slowly transformed into horror as the hidden tears appeared at the edge of her eyes. She looked upwards, in the direction of a picture of an abstract face that hung on the wall, before she screamed at the news. Her husband, clueless, caught the phone as she let it fall from her hand like a slippery object.
Her mother’s wailing had killed the silence that had previously prevailed and was heard throughout the house. Everyone was awake by now. The daughter was still uncertain about what had happened. What felt like the longest ten minutes would pass until she would learn. She saw her mother turn into a statue, unable to confess anything. From what she gathered, her father must have guessed but did not want to admit it either. The only certainty was death, but of whom she couldn't say.
Her siblings then entered the room, seeing both of their parents in a state of distress. They were holding each other, endless tears falling down their cheeks. Their faces appeared luminous and battered simultaneously. They asked what had happened, but the only response that came was raised shoulders from their sister. The siblings pulled chairs for their parents, who seemed ready to collapse onto the floor and simply waited for them to say something.
“My brother is dead,” their mother uttered. She stared into space a while after she said that, with agony and confusion evident on her face. Her brother, who had been the middle child, was seven years older than their mother. He had been the most beloved member of the family, always smiling, bringing everybody’s mood up, generous with gifts, and what one could undoubtedly refer to as ‘the life of the party’. Her tata (Godfather) was dead. When the girl heard those words recited in her mind, she had no idea what she was supposed to feel. He had been one of her favourite people. He always knew how to make her feel special and important. He asked the right questions and dedicated time to hear about the things she was interested in. She was devastated but could not shed a tear. The shock was too big.
“Mother will not be able to bear this. She might not survive this news,” her mother confessed anxiously. He had been her favourite child, her only son. Her grandmother usually denied it, not wanting to dishearten her daughters, but the signs were everywhere. It was in the way she always praised him, in the way she was always sweet with him, in the way her eyes gleamed when he was around. She loved her daughters, but it sometimes felt that she reserved these reactions for him. Perhaps it was the patriarchy, which had infiltrated the everyday lives of their society a long time ago. Perhaps it was the fact that she lived with one daughter, while the other lived next door. The son lived further away. She could only see him when he came or they took her over to his house, but as she got older, it wasn’t easy for her to get into a vehicle, so she had to rely on him to come and visit her.
It was astonishing that at this horrible moment, setting her own grief aside, all her mother could think about was how to break the news to her own mother. Her mother, who from the young age of 11 had begun to experience loss in ways that her youngest granddaughter wouldn’t even as an adult. Her mother’s weeping intensified as she too came to terms with her own loss. The loss of her only brother. What did this mean for her?
Her mother suddenly thought about the phone call. She wondered if she had sounded insensitive to her brother's wife when she delivered the news. She didn’t say much to her, at least she doesn’t recall saying the right thing. “My condolences. Do you need anything? Should I come over? How are you feeling?” She had said none of those things, and she remembers mostly silence after the words had been said. She regrets this, but deep down, she knew that her sister-in-law would not hold this against her. This woman who just lost the love of her life. This woman, whose life would never be the same. How hard it must be for her to have to call everyone and repeat those awful words. “Why wasn’t I more comforting? Why didn’t I ask about all the details, when it happened, and where she had found him?” her mother wondered. But she knew they would have plenty of time for all of this later.
That moment when her sister-in-law’s voice spelled it out seemed so far gone now, as if it were years ago. Yet, of all the things that voice had said before and of all the things that would follow, this was the one thing she would carry. Years would pass, and the two women would spend many moments together, but the impact of four words would echo between them from time to time, haunting them still. “Your brother is dead.”
The room was waiting for a reaction from her. In tears, they looked to her for a sign as to what they should do now. She had none. She was still unable to speak, unable to process. Her husband urged the kids to go back to sleep, warned them that there would be hard days ahead, and they needed to get rest and stay strong. They both moved closer and attempted to embrace the effigy of their mother. Returning to their rooms in silence, they disappeared behind closed doors. The husband stayed with her briefly, but then she spoke and asked him to leave her alone for a few minutes.
She remained still, staring into the void. She felt the weak light of the desk lamp dimming as she slowly became aware of this new reality in her life. She would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for her mother calling her bedroom downstairs. She was hard of hearing and missed the commotion that had taken place upstairs. The light in the corridor above the stairs had woken her up. She had to tell her. Snapping out of the trance she had been in, she proceeded to the steps, and slowly she descended. One of the pictures on the staircase wall was of her and her brother. She had forgotten that they had placed it there, and she passed by it daily without realising. Now, its meaning was different, and she would not overlook that happy memory again.
Entering her mother’s bedroom, she found her sitting up on the bed. “Is everything alright?” her mother asked. “I woke from the light, but I got the feeling that something was wrong and could not go back to sleep.” Her daughter sat by her side and touched her soft, wrinkly hand. Before she said anything to her, the old woman looked into the eyes of her daughter. The single tear on the daughter’s face was the clue she needed to confirm her suspicions. Soon after, the screams of the old woman were heard by the whole neighbourhood. The children who hadn’t been able to fall asleep during this time heard the sounds coming from their grandmother, but it took them a moment or two to distinguish them from those of an animal. “Why didn’t you take me?” was the last thing they heard before the wailing subsided.