So your transitioning definitely didn’t give me a blueprint of all the right things to say to a grieving person, but it definitely gave me a clear picture of at least what not to say to a grieving person.
I just remembered the first time you and Mom visited me in high school.
I know I’m the one who insisted on going to boarding school. Damn, I hated the experience immediately. 😂
Okay, so the first time you and Mom visited me, I ran to you. Not even to Mom… to you. And I hugged you so genuinely. I was extremely happy. That’s even an understatement. Jesus! I was happy that day and, Val being Val, I cried so much. I broke down so badly. The happy kind.
It was confusing to anyone who cared to watch because apparently they confused that for something negative. God knows how happy I was to see you.
Thinking about that now, I doubt I’ve ever given anyone else such an amazing hug. I was truly happy.
Somehow, I’d forgotten about this memory. I don’t know how.
Anyway, the one question I keep asking myself, almost seven years now, is…“Did the doctors care to check everything else before they started the blood thinning?”
I know I have gone through all the parts of denial, and I guess that’s the only one that still lingers.
I try to picture how broken Mom was, coming back home alone without her darling Chela. I’ve never gathered the confidence within me to ask Mom what it was like being with you in hospital. I keep postponing it. I bet I’ll never ask.
Occasionally, I sit and say, “Woiye Chela, if you were alive right now, what would life at home look like?”
I try to picture that… And every time I do, I get different visions of it. It’s crazy because I’m not visual as such. Most of my thoughts come in the form of words.
Lately, I’ve learnt to tell my mind that you transitioned. Transitioning feels less painful compared to saying inside my head that you died.
I see now how losing you was somehow my greatest fear. Anytime you got sick, even just with a cold, I would get so scared. I’ve never learnt to understand exactly why I always had that fear.
Well, I know I loved you a little too much.
And I still love you so, so much.
I still can’t sleep in our bedroom alone. But at least now I can sleep on that bed alone.
We got a niece. She’s Brian’s. She’s the one I share our bedroom with now.
Since we lost you, I’ve only managed to sleep alone in our bedroom once. Two nights. Angela had gone for their school’s music festivals. They were the longest nights.
I would sit up for the better part of those two nights and only sleep in the later hours of the morning.
Now, I can’t ever imagine myself sleeping alone in our bedroom anytime soon. Maybe I just will never find the strength to.
The lights stay on.
I still can’t understand how, on the morning of 1st September 2019, your response to my birthday text was, “I am so grateful to have seen this day”
Just the other day, I thought about that response for a while and I was thinking, “Chela definitely wanted to live. Why didn’t God just allow her to?”
Then I disrupted myself out of that thought by reminding myself that you actually transitioned.
Alan still does my hair. He’s the major connection, besides Mom, that I have to you.
On my last retie, I got a scent from Hilda.
“Hiyo spray imenikumbusha mbali,” Alan said.
“Wapi?” I asked him.
“That was Chela’s and my favourite scent.”
That directly pierced my heart.
Mostly, I usually never respond to those things. If anything, I get so agitated if someone keeps bringing you up around me. I love remembering you personally. Inside my head.
However, I like it. It’s easier for me that way.
Somehow, I’m always going to get this particular scent. Always. It will always be with me.
I’m grateful Alan brought that up.
See that kind of desperation grief always leaves around? You want to hold on to any tiny thing that keeps the connection.
At times, people forget and call me by your name. Mostly, they freeze. Then they apologise.
I usually say a polite, “Ni sawa,” back.
Because yes! Your memory still lives, even outside the family.
I’ve had to learn how to host and accommodate visitors. For someone who avoided being home occasionally… I’m stuck at home most of the time now.
And anytime I’m away from home, I get homesick like crazy. Like I’m missing out on something.
Especially lately.
This happened when I truly came face-to-face with my emotions.
Last year, your friends, akina Sue… they came over in December. Just to spend time.
It was lovely.
See? Your memory still lives on, big-time.
And then I attended Sue’s graduation on your behalf. While introducing myself, I said, “I inherited her from you.”
I remember the last lunch we had together at The Vic. You, Mom, Alan and I.
When Mom asked if I’d go with you after you went back to your place …you know, stay with you for a while until you got entirely back on your feet, there was that slight hesitation.
I was fresh into a certain silly unnecessary relationship.
And also, somehow, because I knew you wouldn’t really be needing me. Like we always knew how strong your bounce back game was.
I wish eventually that was the reality that dawned.
But I can only wish right now, right?
Anyway, the next time I went to The Vic, I broke down so badly.
I’ve never gone back there until my birthday night last year. We just passed around there and I spotted the exact spot we had occupied that particular August.
Jeez!
I couldn’t really wrap my head around it whenever Nita kept telling me that the pain never actually goes away.
It felt unfair then.
But I understand it now.
Esther would shame me for crying. Anytime she found me crying, she’d say something like, “Wacha ujinga, Val. Changamka.”
And I get it. She meant well.
People would say insane things like, “Stop crying. Leave her alone. Make her journey easy.”
People say absurd things to people who are grieving.
So your transitioning definitely didn’t give me a blueprint of all the right things to say to a grieving person, but it definitely gave me a clear picture of at least what not to say to a grieving person.
And I’ve learnt to ask people if they’ve ever had a direct loss…
Because somehow, it’s super hard to understand grief if it has never touched you directly. This feels like such a dark thing to say.
Anyway, it took me a while before I could at least come out of the emotional wreck I was after your transitioning.
I was doing everything else to avoid dealing with the grief.
At that time, I didn’t even know that I was running.
It’s a realisation that’s just hit me recently.
My ring finger, is that what it’s called? 😂 on my right hand is bent somehow.
I tried slapping someone on the cheek after they said something very insensitive about death, and somehow they missed and I hit my hand painfully on the wall.
I learnt to tell a lot of stories around it.
I once told a nail tech that I got it while playing basketball.
Haaaaaaaah! Me, Val? Do I have any athletic bone inside me? 😂
Anyway, I would get pissed off at very unnecessary things. I would lose my cool unexpectedly.
And I was on the longest drinking spree.
I mean, anger is the easiest emotion to feel, right?
So I avoided everything else I was supposed to be feeling at that point and somehow replaced it with anger until I couldn’t anymore.
On the night of 13th December 2019, I would have been injured or, worse, died in a road accident.
But somehow, miracles just happened.
I whispered, “Thank you,” to the sky because somehow, I truly felt that my guardian angel .. you, had played a role in keeping me safe.
The next day was my graduation.
I try not to imagine what that would have done to Mom.
I’ve never spoken this out loud.
As much as, day by day… slowly by slowly… I’m learning to make peace with your passing, I wish you were still here with us.
Better still, I wish I had enough time with you, at least.
Enough time sounds silly, right?
Considering the crazy love I have for you.
I know I still carry around the silent wish I had as a child that, amongst us, I hoped I’d be the first one to die.
You beat me to it.
Considering you were the same person I was enthusiastically asking how people honestly handle the death of a loved one… you made it sound simple.
But we were so full of life then.
You were so full of life.
And I promise, “Unakubali tu” was easier said than lived through.
Because wueh!
I still can’t tell whether your passing was proof that I could actually handle grief…
Or a scare that, truly, I’ve lived through losing a loved one and I can’t imagine going through the same torture ever again.
But we are in this world, and death is part of it, right?
I know I can go on and on…
So let me save some of these thoughts until next year, September 11th.
I wish you were here, cute smile.
Until then, continue resting in eternal peace.
When I have my child, they’re going to hear so much about you.
I love you forever and always.
https://missinjairu.com/2025/09/11/life-went-on-just-weirdly-different/
Shadow to my light. 