My Mother's Daughter

Burial

Today was the day.

The day my mother was "Laid to rest". I Had never understood what that word meant, she was already dead doesn't that mean she was at peace?

Our compound was filled with people who had traveled from far and wide to Ogun state to see my mother for the last time. I peeped outside the window and saw my dad standing outside. He looked lost like for a moment his soul had left his body.

I quickly pulled back the curtain and wanted to begin my day. Shade lay on the bed opposite me asleep. I mean, it was 5 am on a Saturday.

This shouldn't be our lives.

On Saturdays, I woke up at 7 AM to help mummy go and blend beans opposite our street and buy PAP from mummy Precious not attend her burial.

I still had no reaction toward her death. Shade had encouraged me to cry and let it out but how could I when It felt like my tears ducts didn't work?

I rummage through the room a little bit and that seems to wake up my sister.

She looked exhausted.

I had never seen her this way. Shade was a lot of things but she prided herself in her ability to "never to be caught unfresh ".  This meant that even if the world was ending, you will still catch her in a fly outfit, freshly installed frontal and manicured nails. Amongst Wale and I, she is the most social and the one that always looked the most put together but today she looked hollow.

She scratches her eyes for a bit, taking in the sunlight as it reflects into her eyes, and muttering words that were out of earshot.

" I thought I was dreaming, so this is real?" Shade said. "I wonder how you do it " she adds and I don't say anything, I have nothing to say.

I open my mouth to respond and a knock interrupts my door, " Daddy said you guys should get dressed, visitors are arriving and we need to greet them " my brother Wale calls from behind the door.

"Alright" I respond and he goes away.

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My mother was a devout Christian and a Choir at the Redeem Christian Church of God so, of course, her pastor officiated the burial. It was exactly what she would like, they played her favorite songs and read one of her favorite verses she read to the children during Sunday School, it was beautiful. Wale held my hand for most of the service and Shade was going back and forth as she had to ensure that the food was being made just in time.

After the service, it was time.

God knows if there was anything I dreaded the most in my life was having to witness this. It was time to bury my mother.

Shade was here this time around and so were my father and my mother's siblings. The pallbearers had lifted the coffin above the table it sat and were putting it down the 6ft hole where my mother's body would now call home.

I don't know when the tears began to flow, couldn't control them. My mother wasn't here anymore. Who was going to make pepper soup for me and call me "OmoBolanle mi" whenever she wanted to bribe me to assist her with something?

I had broken my leg before, it didn't feel like this. There was no pain in this world I could experience that was bigger than this.

Shade started sobbing also as she stood there and watched as my mother's siblings take turns pouring sand onto her coffin till it was our turn. I could see my brother's hands shake as he grabbed onto the shovel and my sister cried uncontrollably when it was her turn. It took forever for her to pour the dirt on my mother's grave because her body was too weak to hold the shovel from all the tears. After what felt like forever, my father walked up to where she stood and held her hands, carrying the shovel together and poring the dirt.

I did mine calmly and they poured the massive dirt, covering up the coffin. Deep down, I didn't want them to cover it up too much. I had heard stories of people resurrecting after death or were asleep and the doctors thought they were dead and hoped that was the case for my dear Tola but I know that I was only deceiving myself.

She already smelt like death.