One of the many moments I felt seen in my wonderful friendships was a conversation about life, death, and the things in between, I had with Temi over donuts and coffee on a hot Sunday in Lagos. She mentioned how she had never experienced the death of anyone she’d known intimately in all her twenty-something years of being alive and how it frightened her that when eventually one of those days came, it was going to come with more devastation than she could anticipate and more than she could handle. The resonance unlocked a new depth of intimacy within our friendship; when the darker things that linger in your mind and are often too heavy for a conversation somehow make their way to a cutesy girls’ Sunday brunch table.
I’ve always wondered about death, truthfully, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. I’ve always wondered if the Divine too was smirking slyly at me, leaving me to witness other people’s loss so that I’d do the Christian thing of reveling in my luck and thank God that my case is different. Coy in gratitude that at least I get to spend a couple more days or months with my loved ones, unlike the other person. Did life want me to get comfortable enough to think I was invisible and then deal me a dirty hand when I least expected it? Is that the game?
I wondered what I’d be doing when a loved one drew their final breath. Would I somehow feel it telepathically? Where would I be, what would I be doing ? I wondered about my death too. How old I’d be, who I’d be, and what would cause it? Illness, ghastly accident, or old age?
Today I wonder less. I was on the phone with a friend teasing and laughing with each other when a message came from my mother on our family group chat notifying us of my grandmother’s death. “Jesus Christ, O my God, Wow” I responded, unsure of the way to feel. She was a few months to 90 years old, she was mostly always in acute pain and we had anticipated it was going to happen soon. So why did I feel the way I did? It’s a celebration of life when an elderly person passes, I’m told. So I should be thankful. It may be a glorious passing but it does not make it a less painful one.
Tele Rebecca Lassey was born on December 14th, 1934. She was a mother of four and grandmother of twelve. She lived in a house she inherited from her mother, just by the sea in the village she was born in. Mama Togo was the grandmother everyone should have. She was warm, funny, and a fashionista in her right. She’d playfully tease my mother to the point my mother would be visibly annoyed and my grandma would have a laugh about it. We often spoke very skimmed versions of each other’s languages. Me with my “Esobedon” that never failed to amuse her and her with “fine fine” when she’d try to ask if me and the rest of my immediate family were doing well. She made the best salads and soups. She birthed my love of jewelry with the beautiful gold pieces and waist beads she occasionally gifted me. We may not have spoken each other’s languages but she made sure we understood her love. And I loved her deeply in return, her quirks and her humor. I find myself wishing I knew more about all the years that I didn’t know her. Her daily routine, her hopes, and her dreams.
Rebecca Lassey passed peacefully on the 28th of July 2024 in the lovely seaside bungalow that was once her mother’s. The house I hope the ocean never erodes. My love of West African coastal living is deeply associated with the long holidays I spent at that house. I write this overcome with memories of the house and all that it represents.
She was my last living grandparent and I’d selfishly hoped that she’d make it to 90 years so I could shallowly say I have a grandparent who lived to her 90’s. However, witnessing her health decline in the past 3 years, I am beyond grateful that she is no longer in pain. I am grateful for having this wonderful cat lady as a grandmother. She’s impacted in me the importance of laughter, joy and family in old age. I am a part of her as much as she is a part of me. As Africans, we are guided by the belief that death is just another phase of life, one where we become ancestors and spirit guides of the ones who came after us. I know she’s reunited with her mother and her siblings on the other side and I know she’s a guide to the ones she’s left behind. I can’t express enough, the pain of the permanence of her passing and the thought that for the rest of my natural life, I’d no longer have a grandmother living by the coastline in Agbedrafo, Togo. I’d hold on to the voicemails we shared for as long as I possibly can. Truthfully, I never understood a word of it and she never understood the ones I sent in return. Hopefully, we speak the same language in the next life so I can express plainly just how much I've missed her. And the butt dials too. I’d miss the butt dials.
I don’t think I’d ever stop wondering about death but I am thankful for the family, friends, and community that I’ve been blessed with.
And I’m thankful to you, mama. Till we meet again.
Akpe Kaka lo.
— Ene vitukwin
