I’ve felt silence, I’ve known it for quite some time but this is so different. Cold, long tendrils wrapping around my soul. This is so different, it’s reverberation is deafening, drowning out all other noises. It’s cold and far from being ethereal. Definitely unwelcome, it’s forced its way in, flaunting and taunting, teasing but staying out of reach. This isn’t the night, this pushes the night just a tad longer and I remind myself that the day is still out there and so weary I may be, that’s the hope I cling to even as the choppy waters churn all around me. Hope seems little but it’s borne my weight so many times.

How could it be real, unexpected and unwilling to negotiate? Why does it seem as though the cacophony of the cicadas and the tweet of the birds sound so out of rhythm? Whys cloud my thoughts and their sheer weight force me to my knees. I’ve been knocked down so many times so I’ll try and rise to my feet again even though there’s some comfort in the ground but that’s not what you embodied. Self-belief, esteem, being unstoppable, letting go of the reins and just feeling the wind all around me but it’s still dark and I know I’ll never get the explanation I should seek. The words I’ve used before now sound so shallow to me and though they evade me, your lessons still stand out.

Countless times, you gave of yourself, not once holding back and even in our differences, you still commanded the respect you so rightly earned and nobody could ever hold it back. A matriarch in every letter of the word, that’s who you were. Reminding me that being different was also good when being different sometimes meant taking that unbeaten path. As long as you saw the positive impact on my life, you never thought it twice. Giving and giving and given but the scales are uneven, why am I short? Every laborer is deserving of her wages, who’s fit to collect yours.

‘Stand for something’, you’d always say. ‘Embrace change because life and change are almost synonymous.’ ‘Go out there and from your experiences, pick that which suits you best’. Knowing that you raised us right, you were liberal even when loving meant punishing. Now I think I have a clue to some of your utterances – ‘nobody is perfect’, ‘we’re all flawed in one-way or the other but ensure to make your life count for something’ are a few that readily come to mind. You were there whenever I called and so I know this silence isn’t the evil to be scared of. It’s just the feeling that gnaws at my heart as I stare at this unbalanced scale, not able to do more now. Could I have asked for a better mother? That I can confidently answer.

Now I stare in consternation at the fragility of life and I know you lived for something – you lived for your brood. Unafraid that we would be snatched up by the birds of prey because of how grounded you made me. And now even though I know that those scales can never even out but still I must carry on the legacy you represented – that dignity and honor isn’t about what you can buy but what you choose to attain. A lifestyle unique in its own way. So I must pass on more than you taught, without repugnance in any form. Yes it’s hard to turn the other cheek but it’s not about what I think is right but to do what is right irrespective of interpretation or perspective. You made your brood your life work and now as you rest in the room well prepared for you in heaven, I choose to honor you by acknowledging that apologizing doesn’t make me the smaller man.

Of the many lives you so passionately shaped, I can still hear the anguish as your absence sinks in. Encouraging and understanding, you were never a pit boss whose skill was in the dexterity of her card shuffling. You hated gambling anyway but I must acknowledge that you raised 6 kids in arguably one of the roughest cities and today we all stand in different cities and continents to honor you. That is what you deserve at the very least. Thank you mommy! For all the sacrifice, ‘thank you”. For all the pain unwillingly caused, ‘I’m sorry mommy’ but now I still hear you say, ‘not everyone can be like you but remember that all of God’s creation have one head just as you do.’

Adieu mommy! Let us take this on and run with it so that generations ahead will have a piece of you in their hearts. I love you, rest easy!