After

I thought going to the service would make things better, ease the cold dull pain inside.  Instead, it tore open a wide giant gash and poured the burning salt of reality into the wound.  My cheeks burn as that salt oozes from my body in tears.  My soul burns as that salt drips into a stalactite dagger of anger that I didn’t know I could have, that I become all the angrier for having.  For someone whose entire life was full of love and giving and perseverance, these are the wrong emotions to have, the wrong emotions to be left with, sadness and anger.  But they are here, and they are real.  And I do not know how to make them go away without distraction and time.

When are memories not enough?  When are they ever enough?  The best memories exist to be re-lived, and when they cannot be recreated, they must be retold.  I want to tell stories; I want to hear stories.  But how, and where, and who?  I do not know in what way to begin.

The stories I remember, the ones I could tell, I cannot tell them well.  They would quickly turn into inside jokes, and she would not like that.  She was all about inclusion, always about making sure no one was left out.  She passed that trait on to her children.  And, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that.  I am going to miss her so much, but I am very glad the best parts of her live on in them and in everyone whose lives she touched.

She gave us the gift of her light, and more importantly, she showed us how to share our own.  Mine’s hiding under a bushel of anger and sadness right now.  She wouldn’t like that, but she’d understand.  And she’d probably tell me to light that bushel on fire and let the glow burn even brighter.

But I don't wanna say goodbye

It’s 1am.  I should be asleep.  But I’m not. My mind is busy, playing through memories.  Playing through memories that I don’t want to be old or forgotten, unable to be duplicated, unable to be replicated, replayed, relived.

As I’ve gotten older, I feel like death has become less real to me.  It should be the other way around, where death is more real than when I was child in a world where magic existed.  I think it’s because the people leaving are people I don’t see daily, or even regularly.  It’s easy to forget they’re not there, wherever they usually are, until you see someone or hear a voice or a laugh, and for a split second, you think it’s someone you know and love and care about.  And then you remember.  You remember it cannot be them, they are gone.  Or maybe it actually is them, in those moments, a fleeting, twinkling, dancing, laughing moment to say hello, to say “remember me?”, to say “remember me.”

I almost had one of those moments today.  On my plane.  A voice, a voice I almost knew.  But the news was still too raw to be caught in a foolish forgetful hope.  Yet that timber, that tone, while uttering some other words I didn’t hear, still said, “remember me.”  And now I lie here, awake in the dark, obeying the command, remembering.

It is that shining gleam in her eyes when her daughter was crowned Junior Miss that makes the tears flow hardest.  She was so very, very proud.  Always proud of her children, their achievements, her own children and those of us she’d welcomed in with open arms and southern hospitality.

It is her insistence, against her eleven-year old daughter’s attempts to assert “friend-girl” as a thing and three teenagers’ clear awkwardness, that it was so wonderful for her son to have his girlfriends over for dinner that brings choked-up giggles spilling from my throat, morphing into sobs and back to giggles again.  Sobs.  Giggles. Sobs.  Sobs.

It is knowing she’s cheering loudest and hardest from the stands, waving a pompom and hooting and hollering as we snap our horns down that makes me feel a warm giant hug though surrounded by thin air alone in my cold apartment. 

It is that broad, joyful smile that makes the corners of my mouth turn up to smile back even as my lip quivers and my heart crinkles into the deepest frown. 

It is plates of eggs and bacon, folding chairs on lawns, red pew cushions, and a big blue easy chair that unleash a booming, echoing, “so, what’s going on with you?” bouncing around inside my head, waiting for an answer. 

And it is realisticness compounded with a firm resolve that reminds me that within my memories of this wonderful woman lies a superhero’s cape—those who believe can do anything.  Even while acknowledging the mountains that need to be climbed along the way, the hurdles that need to be jumped, and the rivers that need to be crossed.  “Well, there may be a big mountain and eight lions on this path, but I think there’s a real possibility he can do this if he just...”  That was so often her attitude; it may be tough, but there's a way.  And of course, she always had plenty of input on what that way was, too.

It doesn’t matter that the station agent gave us a schedule and we’ve been standing on the platform watching the train come in; I’m still mad it arrived.  Mad it didn’t delay more.  Mad it was even on its way already.  It’s always too soon when people you love go, but sometimes, it really is too soon.

So. I’ll let the memories play, until life goes on enough to bring one of those twinkling moments.  And then, I will obey.  I will remember her.

Birth and Death

A message with an apology and “I didn’t know how else to reach you,” is never one with good news.  Especially not when it comes from someone so far in your past you honestly probably wouldn’t have remembered them if someone had asked you to name everyone that was part of your life that particular year.  You might have remembered them with respect to their role in your life---oh yes, and there was the new volunteer who replaced me at my site---but not by name.

Yet, when that name popped up on my Google Chat, I knew exactly who it was.  I knew the name lingering inside the chat window’s large block of text even more: Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

One of my bamaamas, my Zambian moms.  Bamaamas are like kids I think; you’re not supposed to have a favorite.  Maybe there’s an exception for the one that bore you; that one can be your favorite.  But the ones that are your other bamaamas, the ones that help raise you (even when you’re already grown), and feed you and teach you how to cook and wash and speak Tonga, and live.  The ones you wish you’d asked to teach you how to pee standing up.---I understand the concept; I was just never gutsy enough to try it.---Those bamaamas, I don’t think you’re supposed to have favorites.  But I did.  I had two, and Ba Joyce was one of them.

“I was in Zambia…”

Zed!  Oh, Zed! Just the day before I had been describing Zambia to someone, “Zambia itself will crawl in your heart and never leave. It will burrow like a panya in the grass of your roof, with a scratching that forbids you forget it’s there no matter how infrequently you actually see it.”  At the sight of “I was in Zambia,”  every bit of burrowed Zambia burst forth. 

And then it exploded.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.”

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce bore her second son the week I moved into the village.  Her passing through my life bookended by childbirth.  One of those many things we take for granted here.  One of those common, everyday, planned things that used to truly be a miracle.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.” 

“The family is still clearly mourning her loss.”

Ba Joyce. 

Ba Joyce.

The family.

The family without Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

My eyes welled up as my body filled with ambivalence.  Not the American ambivalence of not caring; the British ambivalence of feeling two conflicting emotions at once that I learned from Kryten.  A strange taffy pull that brought even more tears.  Devastation that Ba Joyce was dead.  Elation that others were not. 

Ba Timmy was out in the village, visiting us.  We were nearing close-of-service (COS in Peace Corps parlance), pack-up-your-bags-and-say-goodbye time.  “When are you coming back to visit?”  Ba Lenix had asked.  “Oh, probably in about five years,” Ba Timmy had answered.  Ba Lenix let out a sort of snorty chuckle, a chortle if you will, “We will all be dead.”

I feared he was right.  At 36, he was already past what was then the Zambian average life expectancy.  At that time, the HIV rate in the country was hovering at about 20%.  Simply statistically speaking, a family with one husband and four wives was not an optimistic proposition.  It had only been a few months since I had sat in the shade shelling beans with my favorite bamaamas asking about why one of their others wives had gone to the mission hospital some 20+ km away, since deep and serious eyes had looked at me as a voice tried to laugh a laugh that caught in a throat, since I had heard  “tuyakufwa.”

There was something else, too.  I knew my situation was not like Ba Timmy’s.  Funding a trip to a quasi-remote African village would not be in my near future.  Not in five years, probably not in ten.  When my mother and grandmother came out to visit the year before, it truly had been a once-in-a-lifetime trip.  Even if I were to move back to Africa, I doubt Mommy would visit again.  But then, going to see your twenty-four-year old daughter in a small community she’s made home is very different from visiting your nearly middle-aged child in a block of flats in some bustling metropolis.

I used to write to them, my family, my Zam-fam.  I used to write letters and Christmas cards and little notes to say hello.  I’d send along pre-paid postage vouchers from USPS so they could write back.  “Ndamueya!”  I’d write, “ndamueya maningi!”  I was not lying; I think about them everyday. 

To get mail to the village, I would send it to the post box in Monze, the nearest town, for the government school in Chona, about 10km from our village of Cheelo.  There was a wonderful family who lived in Chona.  The parents taught at the school and the older sons ran the family transport business, carrying things and people and goats to and from Monze.  They would collect the mail and send it over to Cheelo with a passenger who might be going that way.  Perhaps another Cheelo resident or someone passing through on their way to somewhere like Namateba.  But the mail started coming back, unopened, months later, having gone across the Atlantic, through Lusaka, to Livingstone, to Monze and back.  The school had closed its P.O. box. 

Occasionally, I’d meet a Zambian or someone who was traveling to Zambia.  “Can you take a letter for me?”  And I’d hope the magic informal mail system of people who know people going that way would work.  I don’t know if my letters ever made it.

We lost touch.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Years.  But still, ndabaeya maningi, everyday.  Sometimes, I see them in my dreams.  I see them running towards me as I run towards them, coming up the path past the cattle stall and Ba Lenix’s special cisyu field.  I see them around the fire as we munch on roasted mapopwe.  I hear them yelling “Ba Nchimunya, Ba Nchimunya!” and laughing while my face aches from the stretched smile I simply cannot contract back into fitting on my face. 

Even when I am not asleep, I talk to them.  Imaginary conversations in the shower and on bike rides and in the car and walking down the street.  “Ndaunka ku mbeleka kwa ciinga.”  I’m sure my Tonga is worse than ever, but my thoughts are always in it.  There is no one here to know if I am accidently yelling “prostitutes!” into the air or asking if someone’s menstruated.  I imagine introducing them to Mr. Trizzle, standing sort of scared and unsure on the packed dirt, afraid of what allergens might jump out and bite him.  “Ah-ah, where is Ba Mr. Mindala?”  I try to punt the question.  “ezyi Ba Trizzle, bali benzuma.  Ndabayanda.  Bali kabotu maningi.”  “Ba Nchimunya, muntu isiya?”  Ba Fare would laugh, not really asking a question.  And they would make him feel so welcome and stuff him full of nsima.  The good nsima made from mbusu ground in the village, not that tasteless store-bought mealie meal from town.  And Bay Joyce would hang back a little bit, a huge smile on her face, “Banina Daddy Bunny.  Mwabola?” before coming in for a hug.  “Inzya, ndabola”  I have come.  Finally.  At last. 

But I have not.

And there is no Ba Joyce to smile and greet the mother of stuffed rabbit.

No Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Ba Joyce.

No Ba Joyce.

Mazoka, bamaama benu babolide.  Ino, mwakalona lyoonse, antomwe.  Amudokamane.  Pesi, mebo,ndaousa.  Ndamueya, bonse.

Grandpa

I miss my grandpa.  He passed away about thirteen years ago.  My great-aunt passed a week or so ago, but I do not miss her.  She would not share enough of herself for me to know her well enough to miss her.  Instead, her passing has made me miss her brother more.

Munchkinhead and I spent hours sorting through old family photos that we had never seen.  Photos of my grandpa and great-aunt as young children, frolicking in the yard, dressed for church, in graduation gowns and Indian costumes.  Photos of their parents as a young couple, of their mother as a young girl, of their aunts and their uncles and their grandparents.  Photos of a history we could only attempt to piece together.  I wanted to hear Grandpa tell us stories about it all.

Grandma and Grandpa used to take care of me and Alfred when we were little.  Alfred and I would run amok in their big house while Grandma quietly supervised from the dining room table where a puzzle or game of solitaire was spread over the dark wood.  On special days, we would walk up to the office to visit Grandpa.

As we got older, and they got older, Grandma couldn’t care for us anymore. Grandpa would pick us up from school or take us out to lunch.  Sometimes it was in his little red Datsun, sometimes it was in his giant blue boat of a car.  I think it was an Oldsmobile.  It had a very loud blinker noise that I remember distinctly.  A sort of click-clack, click-clack.  Betty’s blinker makes the same noise.  It makes me smile; it makes me think of Grandpa. 

Grandpa would tell us stories, make animal noises and explain why he would never patronize Hardee’s but would always be loyal to McDonald’s.  I don’t remember what we talked about most of the time.  What do children talk about with adults?  But I do remember that we always had fun.  I may not remember particulars, but I remember love.  And I miss that love.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I am very lucky.  Everyday, I sit in Grandpa’s old office.  I believe a piece of him is still there, and it’s comforting to be around that.  Comforting to see his desk and his knickknacks.  Comforting to think he’s near.

A Frog named Death

Soft, green, huggable with happy, big eyes and a smile.  His name is Fwa the Frog.  Munchkinhead got him for me the day we killed my aunt.

Or at least sentenced her to death.  It would be another ten days before she actually gave up on life.  Ten days without food or water.  Have you ever watched someone starve to death?  The plumpness fades.  The skin withers.  The cheeks sink in.  It isn’t pretty.  It isn’t pleasant.  But I suppose death never claimed to be pretty or pleasant, only permanent.  Permanent, painful, palatable.

I replay the weeks leading up to her final demise.  I question; I wonder; I believe we could have done things differently.  I tried.  Too little, too late?  Perhaps.  She was a fighter.  she could have fought!  Maybe?  But who can fight without food or water?

“She’s not really here,” they’d say.  “Her brain is gone,” they’d say.  “See the pictures,” they’d say.  “See the damage.”  “In our expertise,” they’d say.  But then, she’d wake.  A squeeze, a recognizing smile, a tear.  Awake.  No food.  Asleep.  No water. 

“She’s awake?!  Then you can take her off the morphine.  See if she can eat.  See if she can drink.”  But he was no longer in charge of her care.  “She’s awake?!  This is terrible!”  She was in charge of her care.  No food.  No water.  More morphine.  More drugs.

I sat with Fwa. Fwa the Frog.  Kufwa – to die.  Ndafwa – I die.  Bafwa – she dies.  I try not to blame.  would it have mattered?  Who knows.  I do not miss her now she’s gone, so I wish she’d stayed around a little longer.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, but not Good-bye

There’s lots of fabulous things about my church, but one of my early favorites, one of things I loved even when I wasn’t sure about the church was this pair of sisters.  Older women, they reminded me of the aunts from Arsenic and Old Lace; one tall, one short, always together.  As far as I know, they didn’t serve anybody elderberry wine.

Marie and Nina.  They always sat together near the front of the church, which was quite in contrast to the older people at the churches where I grew up who hid in the back rows.  There they were, always sitting together.

For the past many weeks, it’s been Nina without Marie.  It seemed very strange the first week, and only slightly less strange in the weeks following.  Yet it also always seemed like Marie was still will us, though not physically present.  She was ill and in between hospitals and home.  Yesterday, Marie went Home-home.

I’m sad to think I won’t see her sitting in that pew again or hear her insightful comments at church small group or grasp her hand during sharing of the peace.  I actually know very little about her outside of the relatives who have come to church.  But there was one glimpse I will never forget.

At the church’s Thanksgiving potluck, we were to bring our favorite Thanksgiving dishes.  I brought sauerkraut made the way my grandma used to make it (minus the turkey drippings.)  Most of the locals were befuddled as to what to do with this “condiment” without any hot dogs, but then I heard Marie ask, “who made the sauerkraut?”  Not only did she like it, it reminded her of when she was younger.  Someone in her family used to make it, from scratch.  Here I was feeling all foreigner again and then someone else shared a piece of my culture!  I suddenly didn’t feel so out of place.  It meant the world to me at that moment.

Marie always struck me as very regal and tall, even though she needed to lean on something or someone to walk.  She was also always well dressed.  And I would often think, “when I’m older, I want to be like Marie.”  Not just for her fashion and strong presence, but also for the warmth and calm understanding that seemed to radiate from her.

I have a feeling that warmth will be back in church on Sunday, radiating from somewhere unseen.  ‘Til we meet again…

 

 

Photo: painting by Martin Johnson Heade – A Vase of Corn Lilies and Heliotrope, public domain.  Held at the St. Louis Art Museum

Moral Dilemmas

“You see the moral dilemmas we have to face….” There are those moments, hopefully in all of our lives, when the world stops suddenly and for a moment you are acutely aware of just how small our bubbles are.  Sometimes it’s your own bubble, when you briefly encounter something that had previously only existed on the other side of your thin protective soap skin.  Sometimes it’s someone else’s bubble, as you see them looking out through their glistening, rainbowed film.  This time, it was the later.

She was talking about palmetto bugs, American cockroaches that aren’t afraid of the light; rather large compared to bitty Nashville cockroaches, but not very big compared to what lived in my host mother’s latrine in Zambia.  Apparently, every home in Georgia has them. They’re part of life there, and so is dealing with them.

And that was her moral dilemma.  “You see the moral dilemmas we have to face in Georgia,” she said as though it was so obviously exactly what she was dealing with.  “Do we serve guests dishes that these bugs have crawled over, or do we live in a house with poison in it.” Buggy dishes, or bug poison; to have live bugs or to have dead bugs.

For her, this may truly have been a moral dilemma. Despite her having lived in Georgia for several years now, her bubble world is still very California.  Natural this, organic that, boo large corporations, yay free range farms, etc.  But I couldn’t see this from my bubble.  All I could see was her pressed up against the very edge of her bubble, a wavy line of soap drifting across her face, and between us a gulf filled with all my thoughts.

“The moral dilemmas we have to face…”  I thought of my friends living in Jos who have to decided whether or not to go to church on Sunday mornings for fear they might be blown up by Boko Haram extremists.  I thought of the Sudanese man I knew at the refugee center in Nashville who described his life before coming to the US as very similar to What is the What and would say no more about it.  I thought of my many colleagues and friends in Uganda where the government and society are daily struggling with if and how to integrate former child soldiers of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army back into mainstream society.  I thought of the jury panel on the death penalty trial last week in Martinez.  I thought of our soldiers, and our doctors and our leaders.  And, I just couldn’t see poisoning cockroaches as a moral dilemma.

We should all wish for such to be our moral dilemma.

The Lord’s Newest Super Angel–Part II

The sweet notes drifted through the sanctuary as the saxophonist began to play.  God joined in on the thunder, perfectly befitting the somber, yet joyous people gathered below Him.

It sounds odd to describe people at a funeral as joyous, but there was joy.  There were tears; there was laughter and stories and sadness and celebration, but most of all, there was peace.   One look at her mom standing proud in the front row and you immediately saw where Angie got her strength.  Her father, brother and fiancé were holding up well, too.  But her mom, her mom was solid; grieving, but not despairing. 

Many services for the departed claim to be Celebrations of Life, but this was the first one I attended that truly lived up to the designation.  It was also the first time I’ve heard people pay their respects without any exaggerations.  Angie was so incredible, it would have been impossible to exaggerate and be even remotely believable.

The celebration was beautiful.  People from throughout her life’s journey shared their remembrances.  Everyone who spoke praised God for the gift she had been to their lives.  There was no anger, at least not here.  No demands, no “why, oh why” pleas.  Just peace, and love and celebration.

Our tears flowed.  Even the friend sitting next to me who promised herself she wouldn’t cry had to dab at her eyes with her tissue from time to time.  We mourned.  But we also celebrated.  And I think that’s exactly what Angie would have wanted.

The Lord’s Newest Super Angel - In memory of Angela Holland

She was like Elle Woods; one of those people who’s so amazing she makes you feel like you can do anything.  And I hate that I’m talking about her in the past tense.

Everyone gravitated towards Angie. You couldn’t help it. Her bubbly personality, her enthusiasm for everything, the sincere compassion that just oozed out of her being.  The only bad thing you could possibly say about her was that she was always so busy doing 1800 million incredible things that she’d probably be late to the 1800 millionth and one thing she was going to do with you.

Teach for America, Street Law, and probably scores of other projects I don’t even know about, Angie was always giving of herself.  And she was so smart.  She chaired the academic program for BLSA (the Black Law Students Association), and she wrote onto a journal (instead of getting on through the normal competition) and became Editor. For anyone who’s been to law school, you know how difficult it is to get on a journal, and she did it the harder way.

No matter how down and out you felt, Angie would lift your spirits.  When you felt excluded, she’d make sure you were part of the group.  And when you felt overwhelmed by all the things you had to do, you spent 5 minutes talking to Angie and felt like you had all the free time in the world.

Somewhere out there, a new angel with a big smile on her face is walking up to a someone in need, “Hey girl.”

Mr. Trizzle, Angie and her family/fiancé at VULS graduation 2008

 

 

(I almost got to see Angie just a few weeks ago. In DC for a friend’s birthday, I went to house warming party for another friend and Angie was likely to come to that party. Whether she went to the party or not, I don’t know. I had to leave pretty early to catch my flight back to California. I figured I’d see her soon enough at the Vandy reunion in a year or two. I was wrong. And now I’m on my way back to DC…)

How to Make Yourself Cry

I spent today, my first full day back in the Ville, completely inside my apartment, unpacking and packing stuff.  I have a lot of stuff.  This packing required going through a lot of stuff that has been packed away since I moved here back in '06.  I found my cabbage patch doll's adoption certificate (Rosa Teresa, Nov. 1st), my first driver's license, my first library card, the surgical mask the doctors gave Rhinokey when I had my tonsils out, lots of random stuff.

I also found a letter I wrote to my parents and mailed to myself before leaving Zambia.  Not remembering what it was, I opened it.  I was just going to glance over the letter to see what I could possibly have mailed from myself to myself, but it sucked me in.  I sent it in case the plane crashed on my way home (I HATE flying), a sort of "if I could tell you one last thing."  I considered doing something similar before leaving Nigeria, but didn't.  I think I feel more content with my life and my communications with my loved ones now.

The letter was short, but full.  I bid good wishes to my oldest and dearest friends, who, happily, almost four years later are still my oldest and dearest friends.   And I tried to say what the words clearly couldn't convey, but what was somehow carried by the tone and the emotion of the writing, how very much my parents and sisters mean to me, how much I enjoy every minute with them and wish we could have more time together.  That's when those tear ducts started going.

I wish I hadn't opened it, now that I know what it is.  Not because I didn't want to read it, but because it sort of ruined the sanctity of it.  In a sense, I didn't need to read it.  I know how much my family means to me, and I try very hard to share as much time with them as I can.  I try to show them how much they mean; I hope they see it.

Maybe it was writing that in the first place that made me realize how valuable shared time is, and made me decide to always put important human interactions above anything else.

Or maybe it was that night I thought I was going to die...