On Loss
Seven Short Minutes
A few days ago, I faced a fear of mine. A quiet dread that had pitched its tent in my heart for many years. I wanted to share what it meant to me.
The day started simple. I woke up late on a Saturday. My usual. I haphazardly got ready and went to Elizabeth. I hadn’t been there in sometime. It was cold, rainy, and of course, I had forgotten my umbrella. I attended a congregation I had heard about. But towards the end of that meeting, I felt the impetus to go somewhere I had never been before. At least not fully. I Google Mapped it. Seven short minutes. Just around the way. Would I stay or would I go?
After the amens, many greeted me warmly. They wanted me to come back sometime soon. One of them, an Igbo man, recognized my last name.
“Where exactly are you from?”
“Imo State”, I state plainly.
“But where in Imo?”
“Umuariam.”, I tried to keep the conversation moving, but I knew where it was heading.
“Which local government is that?”, he prodded.
“Obowo.”
“Ahh, are you related to X?”
It’s not that I wanted to hide who I was, or that I was ashamed of my family. I just wanted to build my own life and connections organically. But in a crowd of Nigerians, especially Igbos, someone is bound to know you in one way or another. The world is very small that way. Such was the case with his uncle. He went on about his family’s closeness to mine. How he knew my grandparents. My uncle. My father. How genuinely happy he was to see me once he knew who I belonged to. He asked to exchange contacts, to which I obliged. I don’t foresee myself reaching out anytime soon, though.
That conversation solidified that I would need to go the seven minutes. It was planned years in advance, but would finally be attempted on a random Saturday. I called a car there. Walked a block in the rain to the office. My black leather jacket acted as a makeshift umbrella hanging on my head. There was a screen door, and within it a wooden one with a glass window peering inside. I knocked gently and saw a woman.
“Oh shit!”, I saw her shout. She jumped back slightly, breathing heavy.
“Oh my God I’m sorry!”
She opens the door. “You looked like some monster or demon standing out there with that jacket over your head. I didn’t even hear you knock!”
I guess I fit the part. I was wearing all black by happenstance, after all.
“Why didn’t you just use the back door?”, a man in the room asked.
“I didn’t know. I’ve never been here.”
We shared a good laugh before getting to business. I welcomed it. It eased some tension for me. I had lied to them. Partially. Telling them I had never been there before. There was just no room to explain in a way that would make sense.
“I’m not sure I’m in the right place but do you have a directory of people that have been buried here over the last twenty to twenty-five years?”
“Yes we do. That would be in the older system.” She made her way to a computer and sat down, typing away. “Do you know what year they were buried?”
“I’m pretty sure 2005, but you can search 2004 just in case, too.”
“What was their name?”
I gave her the spelling.
“Hmm, I can’t find it.” *type type type* “Are you sure?”
My heart began to sink. Had I forgotten everything about dad? Down to where he was buried? I had done all this research years ago all for this moment, and for what?
“Can you give me his last name?” *type type type*
I gave it to her.
“There it is. Found it.”
We walked over to an old bookshelf where she pulled out a black binder. Its papers were browned and weathered by time, yet still neatly labeled and tagged. She found him. His plot number. His resting place. She wrote these on a map along with the names of three buried nearby for reference and highlighted the section of the cemetery that he’d be found in.
“How will you get there?”, the man asked. He was a tall, black gentleman somewhere in his fifties. Charismatic. We’ll name him Greg*.
“I planned on walking till I found it.”
“In heels? In the rain?”
Greg offered to take me in the funeral van to find my dad.
“There’s a stretcher back there, but that’s all. It may smell a bit funky. This is the funeral director’s car, so there are bodies in the back from time to time. My car is out of commission right now, so I had to borrow hers.”
“That’s ok.”
He was right. It was, in fact, funky in there. We rode around in the corpse car for a few minutes until we found the section. I stepped out with my jacket on my head again, and so did he, which I wasn’t expecting. He was going to help me find my father.
“I’ll play cops and robbers with you. Tell me his name again?”
I told him, and we both got to walking through the grass, careful not to step on any graves, reading each one keenly. I removed my shoes. I didn’t want my heels digging into the grass, making things unkempt. The cold, wet grass startled me. And the twigs impaled my feet.
“Do you remember what it looked like?”
“No.”
That was another partial lie. My memory was murky. It was twenty-one years ago, and a white man visited the house soon after dad passed. I know his race means nothing in this context, but that had been the first white man to ever come to the house that I could remember. So it was significant in my six year old brain. He had a large white sheet of paper, and on it, a design for the gravestone. It had flowers. I believe the white man paid his respects at dad’s viewing as well. He kneeled next to the casket for a moment, perhaps praying. The day of the funeral itself, mom kept us in the car at the gravesite. She didn’t want us to see that. Now that I’m an adult, I think of that time. I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I get it. I had never seen it for myself. I didn’t want my memory to fail me and tell Greg the wrong thing, so I lied.
It had been several minutes. In my mind, I prayed to God that I’d find the gravestone first. I’m okay that He didn’t answer. It allowed me time to gather myself. I heard Greg shout for me. I ran over, terrified at the state I would find it in.
“Is this it?” he asked.
I saw it. Humble, clean, and respected.
The flowers. Dad’s name, sharply engraved beneath BELOVED HUSBAND & FATHER LOVED BY FAMILY & FRIENDS.
It was beautiful.
“Yes.”
It was immediate. I didn’t know I would weep the way I did. I didn’t know his death impacted me this harshly even now. I was just so afraid that it would look like no one had ever cared for him. Because that wasn’t true.
I would pause in between to breathe and examine it. Cool rain continued to trickle onto my jacket and head. My map became damp.
I felt a need to pray and offer thanks multiple times. I told God I was thankful that I was alive to come back finally. That I could have this moment. I was thankful for life and love and those that are still with me. And I was sorry for all the times I was ungrateful. Which was often. I said I was so happy over and over again.
“I have to go now.”, I whimpered to myself. I struggled with regaining my composure.
I prayed again. I said that although I knew my father wasn’t a perfect man, he made an impact on people. They remember him dearly, with a special warmth. I prayed to reach alignment in my own life so others remember me fondly, too. Because it’s bad to die bad. That’s something Mumsy and I have talked about over the years. Live in a way that doesn’t leave others bitter when you go.
“I have to go now.”
And this time, I left. I turned around from the grave to see Greg standing thirty or so feet away. He stood out in the rain for me.
We silently walked back to the corpse car and returned to the office. I wiped what I could of my tears, and I called my ride home. As I waited, I saw a few somber-faced people dressed in black for the next funeral. When my car arrived, I walked past one of them, an older black gentleman. He nodded to me, and I to him. We understood everything in that moment. That we were both there for the same dark reason. Without a single word needing to be uttered. Greg saw me to the car and opened the door.
“Thank you for everything, sir. It meant a lot to me.” I felt myself nearly crying again.
“My name’s not sir,” he said with a slight grin. “It’s Greg.”
I left with a smile as he shut the door.
On the way home, I meditated. I always knew it was necessary to go, but didn’t know just how much. How necessary it was to cry again. How cathartic it would be. Something in me feels like it’s healing, but I can’t put a name on it just yet. Like a genuine breakthrough occurred.
Perhaps I’d be farther along if I’d seen my daddy sooner—but better late than never.