As I sat on the bed, I could not feel anything. I wanted to feel something, I needed to feel something, but I didn't. I was about to run mad from some kind of guilt. I needed this, but it was not coming.
The room was characteristically pale, and stuffy, with the unnerving odour of ageing. The bedsheet seems to have taken the brunt of it. Beside the bed lay a bucket and by the foot of the bed, a set of plates that he often used for his meal. Everything in the room still reeked of his presence and the bed felt like something that someone was actively laying on, but there was no one but me there.
This was Grandpa's room. It seems like yesterday when he had been dragged away from his preferred place of abode in the village to come to be with us in the city. He never liked it here, even for a day, and I can't say I blame the man; the ways of the village are all he has known since his birth even though he did everything to send his children to the city to enjoy all its benefits.
Sitting here on his bed now, I remember when he first came to the city. He was really happy to be with us, gushing over us, the children while taking in the new environment, in the way adults do, such that you can tell or claim that they are doing what they are doing. I noticed the absence of a woman in his life through his sense of fashion which was catastrophic even by the standards of the village.
In the years that followed, I got to see the source of more than half the things I despised in my father, but I also saw his kindness (something my father didn't take from him). I got to see the frailness of old age and idleness. I got to witness his gradual decline where he was supposed to be better. I could help to wish they would let him go back to his farming to keep busy and stop his old age from eating him away, but it was never going to be so.
Still, on his bed, I remember when we started the hospitals and the treatment. I remember the catheter and the small drip bag that he used to carry with him (not that he moved much). I remember all the times I had to be the one to empty it for him, bring his food, clean him up and the like. I remember all the time he stood up and started walking in hopes that he would eventually get to his house in the village. One time it happened, I had to run and catch up with him. "Abba, juwensian? (it's Esan language for "Grandpa, where are you going". Ireuwa wemuhi (I am going to my house in Emuhi), he replied.
I felt sorry for him. His sanity was no longer to be trusted, but I could also tell he felt in bondage here and he wanted to go to his own house. This began to happen more and more. I should have known then that it was a sign of things to come (not that I could have done anything about it).
I remember the day it finally happened. He had been served his food but wasn't eating. He had been doing so for days by now. He lay on his bed. My immediate younger sibling had gone to check on him, only to find him unresponsive. I remember him raising his hand and it falling back down with a bit of stiffness. As I stood over his dead body, I didn't feel sad or mournful. I didn't feel like I would lose someone. I wanted to feel something. I fed, washed and clothed him; why wasn't I sad??. Now, I understood why he wanted to walk back home; he wanted to die in his house, on his home soil. He wanted that honour and we deprived him of that.
Even a few months later, during the internment, while the rites of those he survived by covering him with sand were going on, it got to my turn. As I packed my right hand full of sand and stood by his graveside, I wanted to be sad, to be mournful, to shed a tear; why couldn't I? I wanted to mourn him and feel at a loss, but nothing. I drop the pile of earth on the white casket and walked away.
Here I sit on his bed now, that is to become mine and I am still hoping to feel something that is not the guilt of not feeling something for him, but nothing is coming. Now, the only feeling I got is the guilt of not feeling his loss. The guilt of not having had a connection with him all the time he lived with us, even though he adored me. In all of it, I realise the proverb "blood is thicker than water" doesn't always hold true, for blood can be very light and thin too.
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Note: Funny how I don't have a single photo of him..
In loving memory of my grandfather; a man deprived of the love of his progeny. Hope you are having a good rest. Forgive me, Grandpa…
