Luyando🖤

15

3 days ago......

"It will be okay", were the last words Moran said as he hugged me awkwardly outside my aunt's place.

Mr Chali avoided me like a contagious virus after I broke down and cried into his chest ( which is really not a surprise and I couldn't care less)., so Moran, his second in command (I think) brought me to my aunt's place for the funeral.

When we got there , Moran left 4 guys to be on the lookout but all that was lost on me as I saw the funeral tent covering even the outside of my aunt's wall fence, it was like everything had become real, my mom was really gone, gone forever.

My legs were stiff in the otherwise black leggings I wore with a chitenge covering it , I had found them on the couch in the bedroom I had woke up in after almost being shot. My arm, still bandaged but there was no pain. The only boiling pain I felt was inside and it was not physical you see.... it was emotional.

When I went inside the gate on trembling legs , I found the males in the family and some of her male work colleagues sitting under the big black tent on the couches that had been brought out as part of our customs.

My uncle was sitting on a couch in the middle looking pissed, surrounded by others.

I guess some things never change.

I guess if it was up to him the funeral would have been held at my burnt down house , everybody crying out as they sit in soot and ashes, as all this looked like a very big inconvenience to him.

I wanted to scream at him but I just held my tongue.

I went inside and I found the living room crowded with women sitting on the floor weeping as custom demands. My aunt was in the corner , hands in her hair as she cried out for her sister and Thandi was sitting next to her crying. When they both saw me they got up and came to hug me fiercely in the middle of the room as they wept.

"Thank God, I thought I had lost you , too," my aunt said as she wept into my shoulder.

They made me sit with them , Thandi put her head on my shoulder.

I looked around at all the faces as they cried out and wept for my mom but me....

I just felt numb.

••••••••••••••••••

The burial, 3 Days later....

That creaking sound as they lower the casket in the ground, is a sound I'll never forget in my life.

I first heard it when I was only 8 years old when they lowered my dad's casket into the ground,now it's my mom.

I was young and I didn't understand much when they lowered him into the ground but now , I have this raw pain gnawing at my insides as I watch the casket with my mom in it lowered into the ground.

Atleast I got to see my dad one last time as he lay so perfectly still in that casket as though he was just asleep and he would get up any moment for one more round of drafts before supper each night but they never even allowed me to see her , she was badly burnt they said, only my aunt was allowed to see her for identification in the morgue.

I can hear the priest preaching but I can't seem to listen or understand, and as custom demands, me , my aunt and cousin are sitting on the ground a few feet from the grave.

They call me to go and put the first wreath on the freshly buried grave after my uncle reads the family speech as my aunt wasn't able to. My aunt breaks into another fit of sobs but she manages to help me stand and Thandi puts the wreath in my hand as she leads me to the grave.

My feet feel like they are made of metal, they fail to move but Thandi is firm as she leads me and I move slowly. I fall to my knees as I reach the grave.

Only one eye becomes blurry and a single tear falls down as I put the wreath on her grave.

With a heavy heart I touch the soil and I say three words that have been echoing in my mind," They will pay."

It's like my eyes can no longer shade a tear, as Thandi comes to help me stand I get a fistful of fresh soil into my hand. I make a promise to myself there and then.

The rest of the burial procession is a blurry picture of people crying, moving about to put wreaths until the grave is no longer visible.

Then we are driven by my aunt Dali to her place. I keep kneading the soil in my hand the whole way. Other than aunt , there's only Thandi in the car. My uncle Chris, aunt Dali's husband is behind us in his own car.

The man never saw eye to eye with my mom and even in the last few days , he couldn't even try to pretend to be sad. It's nothing new but it still hurts.

There are no longer any of the other customs to follow like the family elders tabling issues of cause of death, inheritance and the like*, because my mom and her sister only had each other there are not so many surviving relatives and the few that came are mostly gone by the time we arrive.

Once we are in the living room my aunt says as she hugs me softly in the door way," Lu baby you can now take a shower, Thandiwena tell Mary to prepare Ronald's room for luyando so she can rest a bit".

She doesn't let go for a bit just holding me there. When she does she wipes a tear. I just turn around without looking her in the eye.

Knowing my way around the house I go straight to the bathroom, putting the soil in the folded chitenge and I take a shower, careful to avoid water from splashing on my face , a certain phobia I have come to develop after being tortured.

In our customs and traditions, when a family member dies, traditionally,no one in the family is allowed to have a full body bath, only wiping the body is allowed. It's no longer necessary but I felt it was something I could do for my mom.

My body itches and feels stiff all over from the dirt and grime I feel after 3 days of not fully bathing but it soon relaxes as the I shower.

I do it quickly and I go to Thandi's room and she has already put some sweats and a hoodie on her bed she must have put for me. After I'm done I lay down on Thandi's bed and after a 3 long days of not sleeping , my eyes close and I try to fall asleep but to no avail.

Family and friends can come and weep with you but when they leave, it becomes clear, you go to the cemetery and come back leaving someone behind in a marked hole in the ground.

No matter how hard you cry, adorn the grave with wreaths, put a dazzling tombstone that person is not coming back, there will always be a hole where they used to be an empty space in the role they played in your life.

Which leaves me with only one thing circling my mind again and again until I close my eyes, falling into a dreamless slumber.

Revenge.......

A/n: This chapter was sad but it needed to be done......

The grumps POV was taken due to some reasons.

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