Chapter one
Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember all the words
you like to say behind closed doors.
I have been awed and terrified by the experience of being in
love to the extent that when it’s love, I’d rather close the book and put it
back on the shelf. I do not know how to hate no matter how much I have been
wronged.
I met Tuseke when I had gone for my usual check-up at the hospital.
She was there to visit her grandmother who was gravely ill and on admission.
She had asked for directions to get to the elderly female ward, that was just
the same way to Doctor Mayepi’s office. My all time go to health practitioner.
We walked hand in hand and talked about a few things on science and medicine. She
hated being around the hospital, her wildest place to be.
I got to my spot and she went further to the corridor connecting to the wards.
An hour or so, I was done with my check-up and I walked to the
car park. I had the taxi man waiting for me. Just when I got there, I met
Tuseke, looking broken and devasted. My mind rested on what fate might have
befallen her family, had her grandmother passed on?
I walked towards her and tried to let out a word and ask what went on about. I wanted
to call her by name which I had no idea of what it was then. She then looked my
way and tears rolled down in a splash; “gogo is gone. She died in my arms. I shouldn’t
have come down here. Maybe she’d have lived.” That’s what she kept saying to
me. I opened my arms and let her get some comfort. I have been there before; I knew
that feeling. I let her cry all she could until she began to sobber up. There
were a few of her relations in weary, most of them were elderly women, about
four of them and two younger men.
As a gentleman, I made sure to give her hope and comfort in a way that it
passed down ease to her sorrowful heart.
“I have not healed nor
have I finished surviving.
I am still no good at grieving
and I have not forgiven death.
Loss still tortures me
and makes me scared and furious.”
After a few minutes, one of the women came to where Tuseke and
I were, she greeted and thanked me for being there with them in that difficult moment,
I reciprocated. She then told Tuseke to put herself together for they were
about to set off for home.
We said our goodbyes and I requested for her contact so we communicate about
the burial. I wanted to attend.
“We always tell ourselves that the people we love
will be around forever, until one day – there aren’t anymore.
You lose someone you love, the love you shared lives on.
Their love is always with you.
They are still with you.”
I made a call through to Tuseke the next morning. She sounded a
bit better than the previous day. She thanked me for being there even when we
weren’t too familiar with each other and narrated how significant her grandmother
was to her. She was raised by her grandmother after her biological mother had
opted to relocate to Britain as a British army officer when she was four years
old. The only woman she knew as her mother was the lady who had passed, she had
taken a part of her along. I went on about saying all kinds of hopeful and
assuring words and scriptures.
“There will be days when your grief turns on a dime,
demanding different things from you moment to moment,
giving you emotional whiplash as you try and keep up.
I hope you are gentle with yourself on these days.
Your heart is looking for ways to process a love
that has changed due to loss.”
I assured her that I’d be there for her when she needed someone
to talk to and a shoulder to cry on. That was how our love began.
I attended her grandmother’s burial a few days later, I briefly had a
conversation with her before I left. She just couldn’t stop telling me how
grateful and helpful I was to her in her saddest moments.
We made late night calls and texted in between free time. We were all over each
other.
Weeks after it all, Tuseke was already visiting me, I gave her
a spare key to the house so that she’d be able to come in and go as much as she
wanted. She was always a sweet girl and had a great sense of humour,
intelligent and innovative, things that made me like her the most.
There were so many things I wanted to utter out to her, crucial
matters she was supposed to know as she was getting to be a bigger part of me.
Several times I tried to open up to her but she always made me say no word, I wish
I was man enough to just say it loud without being afraid of what comes
thereafter. I had lost three women already.
I was married twice before. My first wife died in a tragic accident with me on
the wheel, it costed her life and it costed mine too – Asthenospermia. The
hospitals I have been to clearly told me there’s no possibility of making a
woman pregnant, I realized of it three years after the accident when I had
remarried. My second wife divorced me after the hospitals had confirmed I was
infertile, there was no point for her to stay with a sterile man, she left.
I then met another lady who also left me after people snitched
on me to her about my condition. Things didn’t work between us even before I brought
myself to tell her of it.
Then came Tuseke, with her, things happened unplanned. I had vowed I was never
going to get into any kind of serious intimate relationship for my condition
kept embarrassing me but before I realize of it, we were far gone into each
other.
The day I was ready to tell her of
all that I went through She whispered
in my ear
“I take you as you are and you will be.
I won’t try to change you but I will ride out change with you.
I see you and I will never ask you to be less or more.”
With words so charming and full of meaning,
that’s how she destroyed me.
She
didn’t know what I wanted to share with her but she gave me assurance that no
matter what the problem was, she was going to stay.
I narrated the whole incident to her, my fate with the universe. She said no
word and made no sensible reaction, she was just there staring at me. I tried
to make her react or at least say word but instead, she went to the bedroom and
sleep.
“I
still remember how lost I was that night.
how painful and tired my heart was.
how I ran out of breath while in thoughts
of what she had in her heart and mind.
Never will I forget how difficult it was for me.”
I
woke up the next morning with the thought that Tuseke had left me just like the
other two women did, to my surprise, she was still there – in the kitchen,
making breakfast. I felt relived and excited at the same time. she was staying with
me, I assured myself.
“The
season of heartache
is slow to fade
but surely, it will fade”
I then got to believe that silence does carry a response. Silence
is an answer too.
Tuseke was in that kitchen making a solo breakfast. When I asked about my
portion, her response amazed me “what’s the point of making breakfast for my
fellow woman?”
At first, I didn’t get the right line of her words until I gave much thought
over it. She indeed mocked. There was barely strength in me to question her
actions or create an argument out of it. The excitement I had just moments
earlier turned into overwhelming shock and sadness, “Not again Sekuru.”
Time to time Tuseke made sure I got reminded of my incapability
of having a child. She had her moments when she was all good and nice to me but
at some point, she was occasionally making jokes of my condition. She made me
do most of the things for her and her family, run errands, send cash, buy
random stuff for her and her siblings. She started keeping male friends who she
was never ashamed of to introduce to me, I bet she even told them I was
sterile.
Several times I wanted to call it quit, I didn’t see myself
doing life with her anymore, she’d always find a way to disgrace me or mock me
even in public, she stopped coming to my place as she used to and she’d hang
the call on me when we were in the middle of a conversation; there were names
she was always using on me other than sterile or infertile. She made sure I felt
highly how useless I was.
“If someone begins to disregard you,
it’s best to step away silently.
There’s no need to keep putting more energy
to send lengthy messages of frustrations.
Just gather yourself and go.”
Piece by piece, I regained my confidence, I had random
check-ups that gave me hope, Mayepi continuously said “a miracle may happen
someday” but when? With who? And how?
I allowed flowers grew between the concrete of my grief because I chose to believe
in hope for just one more second, because I learnt to stop holding myself to my
own impossible standards. ~Awakening
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