I heard the striking steps and knew that my dad had arrived. It was past 4 pm. My dad walks with such razzmatazz any feeble fellow would feel intimidated but he cares less. He prefers to be himself than please fainting souls.
I do not know whether I picked that from him; maybe. But, on this fateful day, I was in a place of deep reflection, almost to the point of palpitations. I won’t say panic attacks because the psychologists are ready to prescribe their anti-depressants. I was not there and I do not want to add yet. My dad had just arrived from a family meeting that seems to have dragged so he just wanted to have a drink and sleep and I left him alone.
But my dad is so loving. He would not part without a kiss on the cheek or a squeeze of the arm. You certainly know he’s got an issue if he misses the two or any of it.
My mum had passed the previous month and the family was still mourning. It was unexpected because she was so excited about her upcoming 55th birthday and she would not allow us enjoy a single moment of hearing a pin drop; any little opportunity to talk was a reminder that we needed to do better than we did a year ago when she marked her 54th birthday and by the way, that also marked her 25th marriage anniversary to my dad. Yeah, that silver jubilee thingy.
Please don’t guess my age yet; I guess I just literally let you in on that. My eyes half closed with my right palm. Smiles.
Like I said, I was soaked in my woes of not just mum passing but the fact that I did not like a lot of the things going on with and around me. I may not go into the details of them and I have always not liked the phrase ‘oh, I wanted this, that and that until life happened’. But in that moment, I felt there probably was a need to have a rethink. I studied medicine in school and knew that the door to my riches would be opened as soon as I started work. I had anticipated a better life than most of my mates and I was unwilling to sacrifice a night’s sleep over any other argument. But it turned out, I fetched too much onto my expectation plate and did not factor the economists’ popular phrase ‘all things being equal’. To put it in plain language, I was unhappy and couldn’t help it.
After soaking in this unhealthy energy, I decided to call my buddy, Vivien. She loves stories and not a great gossip partner. She will literally tell the person you gossiped about in-front of you ‘oh, Lilly said ABC about you, is it true? Or I’m disappointed, what do you say?’ I still called her anyway. Let me tell you that my office had given me a week off to mourn my mum so I was off work. But that call and eventual interaction saved more than half my brain.
She gave me her strategy of how she survived or should I say lived after losing her big sister and mum almost at the same time. She found solace in that strategy and she believed it could work for me too. She did not fight her emotions to go away instantly; she accepted them and had a good cry. She talked about it like I was doing with her, she got support like I was getting from her and most importantly, she never forgot the good memories. She chose to pass by to spend some hours with me.
But again, I was reminded that we all deal with our issues differently. She spent two days with me and left. It was a wet Friday when she got in after work. The rains were very gracious and stayed until I felt the cold breeze through my windows that Friday night. We spoke, we laughed and she shed her tears on my behalf. But they say you feel it most when alone. I wanted to test that and on Monday morning, I arose quite early; just before the blue hour. It did not take long before the rays of the sun forcibly penetrated my light white curtains and almost angrily got me out of my bed.
But the good news is that, the conversations over the last days had actually helped. My heart did not have aches upon waking up and my stress sleep was almost gone. I walked to my window and opened it properly. I realized that the temperature dropped through the night and the amazing thing was the dew of the morning, on the shrubs behind my window. Then, that amazing surprise; a blue butterfly. I went on google and found that was possibly a Nymphalidae.
Ideally, I should not be so moved by a puny creature whose life would crash just at a little slap from my palm. But I was intrigued because it suddenly reminded me that in the pursuit of our dreams and the events of life, we forget the little things and the natural environments that are meant to be enjoyed day by day. I had forgotten that I was privileged to live in one of the greenest cities and neigbhourhoods where nature was not hard to find and the breeze alone from the tiny mountains close by could remind me and perhaps us that we are not alone.
Social statuses and money sometimes cannot satisfy that inner vacuum when such realizations are lost to the wind. Anyway, let me call Vivien and thank her again for spending those beautiful 48 hours with me. I have been told that gratitude adds to your fortunes. Let me leave it here. I will catch up with you again; hopefully soon.
