Daisi

The cries of visitors’ babies and the smell of methylated spirit wafted through the air. A forgotten TV stand and a dusty socket situated above the ward entrance indicated that there might have been a TV playing once upon a time.

At the far end or the ward on a bed that had definitely seen better days sat a woman old enough to have witnessed Nigeria’s amalgamation, Independence and Civil War in her lifetime.

Cataracts had conquered her eyes, and even after several surgeries she could just barely make out the faces in front of her. Her coffee skin was as wrinkled as leather put through a washer, and the arthritis made her bones weak and her movements labored, that didn’t stop her from adorning her wrist with several bracelets. From the way her long, silver hair was wrapped in the red gele atop her head you could tell that she was a beauty back in her day. Traces of her youth still lingered in her gentle smile and melodious laughter.

She stared at her six year old great-granddaughter as she animatedly told her stories of her friends and how much she loved primary school.

Her second daughter dished the Jollof rice and plantain-her mother’s favorite meal-she had cooked into a blue, plastic bowl even a child could eat from. There once was a time where she only used ceramics, but even age forced you out of your favorite habits.

Her grandson-in-law read a passage of The Pilgrim’s Progress to her. It had been her favorite book ever since she first read it in the dusty library of her missionary school in 1916, and hearing the words brought her peace.

As she spooned the spicy grains of rice into her mouth she recounted the stories of her youth, of meeting her husband, of going to university, of her job in the publishing company, of Independence, of Biafra, she had never run out of stories to tell them.

It had become clear to her that when you lived long enough, you became a living and breathing library of all sorts of beautiful stories.

The doctor had said she didn’t have much long. She was okay with that. She had lived a long, beautiful life, fulfilling life. She was 98 years old, she’d experienced more than most, and she was grateful for that. Even if she would die at that moment, she’d be glad knowing she died surrounded by people she knew loved her.

Her smart, talkative great-granddaughter and her patient, gentle father.

Her ill-tempered, adventurous daughter.

Her stylish, inquisitive son and his two adopted daughters.

Nightfall quickly descended, and most of her loved ones said their goodbyes and good nights; promised to visit tomorrow. She was left with just her second daughter, who fluffed her pillows and adjusted the fan to fit the weather.

She slowly yawned and her eyes drifted off to stare at the square tiles that lined the ceiling, her thoughts floating around.

Suddenly she felt it, her time had come. Death was not painful at all; to her at least. It felt somehow like falling asleep, she could vaguely feel her daughter holding on to her wrinkled, arthritic hands and begging her to at least say goodbye.

As her soul dipped out of her body, she could see the tears slip out of her daughter’s eyes. She looked over her body and it-she-looked peaceful. Her soul no longer felt the heaviness of her limbs, the stinging pain in her joints, the cloudy film over her eyes no longer bothered her.

Her daughter made calls to her two younger sisters and brothers to break the news. ‘Mama is gone’. Their sobs passed through the phone speakers.

And when the morgue attendants came to wheel her body away, she felt an odd sense of comfort with the way they handled her body.

It didn’t matter that she had lost her first ever baby as an infant; It didn’t matter that her husband died without ever seeing his only son; It didn’t matter that one of her daughters couldn’t face her after running away with a manipulative musician when she was nineteen; all was forgiven now. She was free from her tragedy.

That was it, Daisi was finally at peace.