Yesu niwe wenka owunshangiremu, obusingye n’okushemererwa..” (Jesus, the source of my peace and joy)… so that runyankole hymn goes.

As I type away, I am listening to this hymn, and many more that are playing at my grandmother, Beatrice’s funeral service. Grandma Beatrice- sister to my mum’s mum, and therefore, her auntie, has held my maternal side of the family together for years.

You see, sometimes you will share with people about someone you love that passed, and once they establish that it was a senior citizen, they try to convince you that, ‘at least it wasn’t your immediate family member’ or that “oh, they have lived.”

The heck you mean?

These hymns have carried me to a whole different realm and got me really thinking. You see, since becoming a mother, I think way deeper than I previously did. I think about my grandmother who has passed at the age of 88, and I cannot help but think of her own mother, Kezia who once went through the process of having her, the joy of holding, cradling, nursing her, and eventually raising her before she herself left God’s earth.

Grandma Beatrice was born in 1940, so that means her own mother was born a really, really long time ago. My memory of her is quite faint because I only met her when I was about two. And I have never even thought of her until today- as we lay her child to rest at the age of 82.

The core reason of my deep thoughts today though, is the unending loop of anxiety, joy, and fear surrounding our lives, and impermanence on earth. We pray for children, become deliriously ecstatic when we have them, and then go through the motions of raising them. It should be joyous throughout, right? But to convince ourselves of that, is to fib ourselves.

To know love, is to expect to know loss, and subsequently, sadness and grief that never goes away.

I have no recollection of my mother’s parents because I do not remember meeting them. Mummy says I met her mother when I was two months old. That hurts- that I don’t remember them, but it does only because I am sad that my mom lost them while young.

However, I spent a substantial amount of time with my father’s parents and their departure in 2012, and 2019 respectively left an indelible mark of grief.

I still remember my dad’s stance and speech during his mother’s funeral service. He held back tears, and it is unfair that back then, I didn’t expect him to shed a tear.

He is a man. He is Dad. No way he should cry.

That was then. Now, I playback and I should have comforted him way more than I did. He lost his brother, my Uncle Julius first in ‘99, then his father, and then his mother- the very person that gave him life and raised him so graciously until his early 50s. My heart now breaks for him. For both of my parents because they lost the only people that loved them unconditionally.

“oh, you kids don’t love your parents unconditionally?”

Are you kidding me? There is enough love to go around but it is all different. God knows I love my parents and will do anything for them- anything. And the sentiment holds the same for my children. Yet deeply, the love feels different.

My thoughts seem all over the place because I am grieving. I am revisiting grief whose existence I never acknowledged.

I am grieving my aunty Hilda who passed early last year, a few days after the passing of her nephew, my uncle Humphrey- my mum’s cousin.

I am grieving the passing of Jajja Jolly, two months ago. Jajja Jolly was the village midwife for so long back in the 90s. She was my mum’s auntie, sister to mum’s mom, and grandma Beatrice, and on a more personal note, she helped my mum deliver me, and my sister, B.

I am grieving that my mother has not managed to attend all her loved ones’ final days because of the misfortune of unwellness that hampered her mobility, three years ago. Bless my father for continuing to hold space for her.

That also brings me to the part where I quietly grieve the happy yet stern parent my mom was, before surviving a stroke.

I guess all I needed to expunge these feelings was the passing of an 88 year old woman that I adored. The woman who raised wonderful children, one of them being a beloved uncle named R. Uncle R loves everyone that his mother loved, and those are very many people to love.

How we live on this earth really does have an effect, doesn’t it? As to whether it matters to the person leaving the earth, I am not sure but I am sure that it matters to those that stay- at least for the time being.

I am glad my feelings finally have a home.

If you have read this far, thank you.

Love & strength,

Misty.