THE RECKONING.

 

25TH July 2021

On this day, my heart was ripped out of my chest, I lost a part of me, albeit I did not know it yet.

You know that moment when you're at the precipice of something that will wreck your universe as you know it, but you are blissfully unaware of it for now? That's the one.

Life is a shameless motherfucker sometimes, it gives you no warning. It just goes and happens and you're left to deal with the fall out.

I got the first phone call at 8.30 p.m. I could not pick up though because I was high off my ass and I had one rule: Do not talk to family while high. So I ignored it.

The next one came at 9, then another, then another... eventually it was a matter of, "Someone had better be dead or dying.." because y'all can't be blowing up my phone for nothing. My goodness, I had no idea!

26TH July, 2021.Or otherwise known as The day that I found out My Heart had been ripped out of my chest the previous day.

 I don't like waiting, I have had a complicated relationship with it all my life, and now I can't stand it! I had this feeling for hours that my life was about to be wrecked, I just didn't know how.

When I was finally told, I don't think I'll ever forget that moment. I had a view of the setting sun that I was unable to appreciate because of the tears that clouded my vision. In that one moment, my entire life was knocked off course. Everything else seemed trivial compared to the bigness of this one thing.

I had so many questions, most of which I didn't ask. 'What do you mean he died? Sixteen year olds don't just randomly do that.' 'What happened? was he in an accident? This doesn't make any sense.' "He was not well..." 'He was. We talked on Wednesday, he was well then.'

I called my mom, I cried as she told me what had happened. Weeping that turned into sobbing after I hung up the phone, until I couldn't breathe.

I called my friend while I sat crying in the loo. How do I put it? there's no rule book for, "here's what to do when your little brother goes and hangs himself." It doesn't exist and I'm not about to make one. No.

Nothing could have prepared us all for this shit and I hated it. Every single second of it!

Grief is a motherfucker by the way. It comes on a day when you have an Engineering Surveying CAT the next day. Suddenly, you don't care about anything that starts with, ends with or is related in any way, to Engineering.

27th July 2021

Your aunt and uncle expect you to go back to school, do the CAT and then go home. The only reason you might want to go back there is to pick up that black dress you've never quite found the occasion for. You don't do any of that though, because the most important thing, the only thing on your mind, is getting home. Home to your mother and other little brother because maybe they are shattered by all this as you are.

Grief, I reiterate, is a motherfucker!!!! It's back to school season, so getting a car home is a bitch! A lot of waiting happens here and even after getting a car there's still an eight hour drive between you and your home. If you've asked me recently why I can't stand waiting, this  right here is your answer.

You finally get home to your mother and brother and about a million guests. And did I mention your appetite has been closed for business since you heard the news? No? Well, it has. You are offered a plate of food that you do not touch, so you just wait. Wait for everyone to leave so you can get all the details from your mother.

Even after everyone has left, you have to wait because some people would rather talk about the weather or politics instead of the matter at hand. When you get tired of waiting, you interrupt one of them and ask your mother what the fuck happened.

She tells you how she sat on the floor and shivered when she got the news. The kind of shivering that a thousand blankets couldn't cure. She tells you how the next day, she went to the place where he did it and talked to his clothes cuz they had taken his body away. She asked them how he could have done such a thing and how was she supposed to tell me.

"Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, What have you done?"

The words that came to my mind when I saw the haunted look in his Father's eyes.