My grandmother doesn't recognise me anymore; it is painful, yet that reminds me of old age. Whenever her mind is stable, she talks to me; she says, 'why has God forsaken me by letting me live this old?’ I put my fingers on her fragile fingers and say to her, 'Maami, God knows best’ she wrinkled her face, looking out at the window; she goes off, staring at the clouds.
I remember when my uncle died, her first-born son, I saw him last, his slow breathes, before he finally died. My grandmother mustn’t know about it, my mother and her siblings whispered, it would kill her, it’d devastate her, to live beyond her child, no mother should feel such amount of pain, so they kept quiet. I also had no other option than to stay calm, too; after all, I’m just only a grandchild. But I couldn’t help but imagine, wouldn’t it be cruel to keep such a secret? Maybe I’d understand when I’m much older.
My Grandmother didn’t use to be frail, in-fact she went to her stall daily at Sabo market, selling items, my mother considered irrelevant, but my grandmother would protest, in her defence, selling these items kept her sane. It was a long, endless battle, my mother waged continually wondering why her aged mother wouldn’t just sit at home, instead of moving about, in the name of selling her wares, which couldn’t even feed a family of one. But still my grandmother continued, I remember vividly the hugs, the kisses on the cheeks she gave me whenever we saw, calling me by my first name, asking about my sister, asking about my father, and challenging me to ask him to see her, in her words, 'is it until I die, before he would come?’
Then suddenly she started falling ill, sometimes for a few days, then weeks, then months, till she started losing weight, still she struggled. She was a fighter, I knew she was because she was a woman who had fought several battles on her own, her eyes had seen things, been to hell and back, and still, her eyes glistened; she was that that kind of a woman, even if she wished for death, she couldn’t just give up without a fight.
Then we all became strangers to her; her memory began to fail. First I was hopeful that it was a one-time thing, ‘it’s been a while I saw her’ I tell myself then it became a constant phenomenon, temporary but painful nonetheless. She always apologised whenever she remembered what we were to her. I stopped introducing myself to her, I became anonymous, the pain unbearable to me, but still I visited her, bearing food and drugs.
My mother called me, a few weeks ago, she wailed to the phone, 'your grandmother had eaten something, she’s purging’ quickly I told her to either buy ‘Imodium or Flagyl’ for her to use. She says to me in return, ‘she’s too weak’ the phone went silent. Later did I learn that she had worn a pampers, then I said to myself that indeed 'Age was cruel’ I remember the time when I was a child, I had wet the bed that particular morning when my grandmother stayed with us, I remember she teased me about getting a pampers so I wouldn’t have to wet the bed anymore. Now she’s the one who required pampers. But according to my mum, after a few days, she resisted wearing pampers saying; ‘I’m old, not stupid, I’m very capable of going to the bathroom’ that was the kind of person my grandmother is.
I saw her again yesterday, and she had claimed she was hungry when I brought food for her, she looked deep into my eyes but couldn’t recognise me, she just ignored me. I took the time to check out her current physical features, and she was so frail, her whole body a clumsy mass of shrunken flesh, all these a testament of old age, for her age and fragility she was still strong. Mentally she appeared sane, 'then why doesn’t she still recognise me?’ I found myself asking.
I never want it to be like this with my grandfather😑