Growing up in the family yard was under strict unwritten rules, doctrines, and codes. Perhaps the most dreaded of them all was the rule that forbids a child to still be asleep at sunrise. It was a crime no child would ever wish to be accused of, let alone commit, as the repercussion was heavy and better imagined. However, the peak of the harmattan season when cold bites the hardest was usually a deal breaker for even the most disciplined child. That was the period when most children preferred to go to the stream to fetch water for their parents in the evenings as against waking up by 4 o’clock in the morning when the harmattan would be merciless. I was no exception. I had done two rounds to the over four kilometres trip to Utor River the previous evening, and being tired, I had no doubt that waking up early the next morning was always going to require a miracle. So, as I went to bed that evening, I knew the yard would hear my voice in the morning when grandma would plaster her accustomed torrents of hot slaps across my buttocks. It was a calamity I could do nothing to avert, an omen I awaited in utter helplessness.
However, this day was unexpectedly different, strangely different. As I lay on the dishevelled mat which barely covered the hard rectangular clay mound that served as my bed, I could hear faint, heavily subdued whimpers in my understandably alert subconscious, and I concluded the hour had come. I waited to jump off the bed in expectation of grandma’s slap, but instead, I could only hear some mumbling. At this point, I needed no further confirmation that all was not well. Normally, grandma’s slap administered with professional dexterity would send me scampering back to life from dreamland. Why was that not to be? Why the delay to mete out to me a punishment I was so deserving of? Perhaps someone was trying to postpone my impending torment, I concluded. Gently, but stylishly, I twitched my left eye open apparently to evaluate the potency of the danger that was to befall me, and behold, I was greeted with an undeniable confirmation that clearly, something weightier than my crime of oversleeping had happened. I quickly hopped to my buttocks, frightfully, yet the sight that confronted me got me both worried and surprised at the same time. Grandma sat at a corner of the room with her jaw hanging heavily on her hand, flanked on both sides by Mama Friday and Sister Theresa, her co-wives in marriage.
For a moment, I felt relieved that I wasn’t in danger after all, but then, there was something about grandma’s look that warned me not to celebrate my temporary exoneration. Yes, I could tell with utmost certainty that my juvenile transgression was no match for whatever it was that made grandma so grief-stricken. Grandma’s life had been a catalogue of sorrow and anguish, which had deadened her to both physical and psychological pain. In fact, it was safe to say that life had thrown so much at her that she had become insulated to earthly worries. So, what new tribulation could she have encountered to completely strip her of every semblance of willpower? I looked from grandma to the two women who just stood there by her sides like human pillars without uttering a word. From fear to apprehension, I inched forward involuntarily towards Sister Theresa, who apparently noticed my dilemma. Without as much as a glance at my direction, she muttered faintly, “It’s Shushu… she has been in labour all night.”
My heart sank instantly and I needed no further answers to my unspoken questions as to why grandma was a fleeting shadow of her ebullient self. True, ever since old age caught up with Shushu, there was always a concern each time she conceived with a child. I could tell grandma hadn’t tasted sleep all night as her old eyeballs were red and withdrawn into their sockets. Of course, grandma was very fond of Shushu. Who indeed, wasn’t? Shushu was a rare breed and infectiously lovable. I felt a need to console grandma. Maybe a few words of comfort, at least, but the inability of my young mind to conjure the right words and its greater lack of the needed communication skills to convey them, without betraying the sobriety and sombre import of the moment, dealt the idea a fatal blow from which it never recovered.
The ensuing silence lasted an eternity. Even the air became thick and heavy. The atmosphere was palpable, pregnant with a tragic foreboding. Reprieve would, however, come as Uncle Okodugha’s approaching footsteps were heard in the near distance. Quickly, all eyes turned to his direction as he sauntered closer. Uncle Okodugha momentarily burned under the intense glare of expectant gaze from all four of us in the room. He cleared his throat deliberately like one searching for the courage to undertake a difficult task, then he ventured, “Well…”
Without warning, grandma snapped out of her reverie with a question that sounded more like an affirmation, “Don’t tell me she…”
Not wanting to lose momentum, Uncle Okodugha doubled up, “Yes, we lost her… and her unborn child.”
Mama Friday and Sister Theresa quickly dropped down, apparently to give grandma a supportive cuddle, but she had remained calm and unmoved, only managing to mutter beneath her breath, “It is well… it is well.”
I felt a warm, damp sensation as my singlet, which also served as my pyjamas, plastered around my chest with a wet resolve. Behold, I have been crying. Uncle Okodugha looked towards grandma and queried, more like a general question, “Do you want to see her before I cover the grave?”
Grandma raised her head dreamily to reveal dim, misty eyes that have lost most of their sharpness to old age and countless seasons of harvests of untold misery. She rose wearily to her feet, followed by Mama Friday and Sister Theresa with Uncle Okodugha leading the way. I quickly hobbled closer to grandma and held her by the helms of her wrapper, almost in protestation to be allowed to join the obsequies.
Ordinarily, graveside ceremonies are never for children, but Shushu’s funeral was understandably different. Uncle Okodugha had laid the remains of mother and child in a shallow grave at the backyard. As I stared at the two lifeless bodies in the grave, my young mind never stopped to wonder what a complicated labyrinth of irony life truly is. A woman who was famous for always delivering a set of quintets at every conception died of labour at the delivery of a single child. I would later find meaning to this puzzle as I grew older: “The day a man meets with his death is not the day he embarks on a long, tortuous journey.”
The ceremony was brief and devoid of conventions. No prayers, no funeral orations, just one last look from grandma, and she turned away. Uncle Okodugha, who himself had been overcome with grief, began to cover up the grave with somewhat ferocious intensity to close a chapter no one could ever reopen.
For the most part of the day, grandma remained sober and grief-stricken. The pain of Shushu’s death was heavy on her. Of course, that was expected. Shushu had been a major contributor to our domestic economy. She helped in many ways to sustain the homestead. For instance, selling off her children was a major source of income for grandma. Little wonder that like most families would have done, grandma did not ask for her remains be torn in parts and stored as meat. Instead, she opted for a deservedly befitting burial.
Indeed, Shushu was not just an ordinary goat. She was most certainly not your regular goat. Shushu was family.
