A Measure of Love and Grief
In remembrance of a thousand forgotten memories
The human memory has unlimited capacity. A rabbit hole full of wonder and moments calling us back to feelings, people and places long since out of reach — transporting us like time machines. How strange it is that the mechanics of how we can forget all the details — are the same ones that can trigger us to remember everything.
A thousand kisses
I hum a melody. Nostalgia pulls me in closer than lovers do, painting me over until I’m misty blue. I sing the hook ‘so kiss me…’ —on repeat in between more humming. I’m trying to retrieve the other lyrics that are hiding themselves in a dusty corner of my mind.
Just like that, I’m back in St Lucia watching the sun slip beneath the oceans waves. Its been a long time since my lungs were filled with air like that, clean air that I could breathe.
There I was with a sweet guy sitting beside me, his arm draped around my shoulder as electricity fizzed between us. In the distance, a sound system blares out the lyrics of that melody — ‘kiss me, beneath the milky twilight…’ —and I’m wishing that this islands son would hurry up and hear my body calling him on. Soon enough, I got my wish, over and over and over again.
We were two — twenty somethings, holding onto our own piece of paradise. Melting ice cubes across each others skin as the night simmered and we became part of its symphony. We threw our heads back and tried to stretch out every moment, counting backwards from infinity as we fell up to the moon.
Even though there is no such thing as us anymore and I never knew it at the time; we shared kisses and traded pieces of soul that would find a home of their own. A version of forever, beyond any measure of his or mine.
A thousand paper cuts
Once upon a time, when I was 18, I had my first encounter with grief. It split me down the middle as it cast its shadow — and rewired me.
Just two years before, during the summer of 1992, my two sisters, my mum and I flew thousands of miles from our South London home to Nigeria. I dare to say, it was like a pilgrimage for Mum. Nigeria was holy ground, the making of Mum; the birthplace left behind decades ago. Having crossed many rivers and grown another ten years since she last planted her feet in Nigerian soil— she had returned. For my sisters and me, it was our first visit. We were diaspora leaves (re)discovering our tree.
We drove for hours and hours, speeding along pot-holed, country roads — as the breeze blew my relaxed hair back into its natural coils. Until, at last, we arrived at my grandparents village of Ekakpamre. The car slowed down and — so it seemed — did time as Mum called out ‘Papa’ to a statuesque, dark skin toned man riding a bicycle. In that moment, I got to witness Mum as a daughter — for the first time.
Grandad — angel Gabriel, was here. I was face to face with somebody extraordinary, his gentle aura exuded the soul of a butterfly. I’m sure my eyes danced as I adored him. It was love at first sight. I was an awkward teenage girl with tatters for wings who felt like I could fly in his company.
Two years later, the Universe called grandad back to the stars. And I became a meteor hurtling towards the Earth. The cuts were unbearable, the stinging was relentless and my heart became a splintered thing. I was spinning in the wind trying to hold on to the love that we had — while a mighty, long shadow was cast.
Love and grief, move through us at any given time or day like air, within the light and shadows — untamed. The encounters are inevitable, with no regard for rules and boundaries; fragile hearts or timing — love and grief, pulls us up and down; lifts us to heaven and drags us through hell. Love and grief, are two sides of the same invaluable coin; leaving us feeling spent when we give our everything — and unspent when our everything has nowhere to go. In life, our capacity to hold the considerable weight of both — continues to be stretched. This kind of exhilaration and anguish — is a hazard of loving; whoever we love we’ll mourn for. This is the poetic (in)justice we receive — deservedly or otherwise — for living wholeheartedly.
This is not your ending. There will be an ending after this ending.
