Letter to Chenjerai Hove

July 23rd, 2015

Musaigwa,

I am not sure why I am writing you this letter. In English. We never communicated in English. And you are dead. You did promise me that you would be a ghost, a very ‘kandangaras’ one, were your exact words. So I know you are reading this, sitting up there in the sky, wondering why I am communicating in a language that to all intents and purposes we lived and breathed, yet we chose not to use when we spoke online. I barely knew you, your life, your family – I never got to ask your children’s names. Some would say I should not be writing this, whatever it is. A letter? An obituary? A penance piece? But writing is the one thing that brought us together, united us, and it is the closest thing to an anti-depressant I am allowed to take. Writing this is my way of trying to come to terms with the fact that you are gone. Truly gone. I never had the chance to say goodbye. I am not able to travel up for your funeral. I am deeply, deeply sad. More importantly, today is Thursday, we were supposed to be on Skype.

“Hesi zimhandara! Uripi ko?” You burst onto my skype like that, (hello big girl! Where are you?).  I still cannot figure out how you got my contacts, why you chose to find me on skype of all places. I also do not know why you chose me. But thank you for reaching out, for being my friend in this special way. You started writing me long messages, as if we had been speaking just the other day. No by the by, no introductory notes. Just picking up where we had left off in 1998. Or was it ’99? Why am I lying? We had not exactly been bosom buddies. I knew you as an older brother. The writer. The editor at Zimbabwe Publishing House, across the street from my Women’s Action Group offices. You worked with my friend Laura Czerniewicz. You were nice. Too nice. Always joking with me. Always calling me ‘zimhandara’, not in a condescending-put her down sort of way. Just a matter of fact. I am a big girl, in all senses of the word. Later, I would meet you often with Ray Mawerera, my Parade Editor-friend. We would hang out together, an odd bunch.

 I heard you had left Zimbabwe, sometime after I did. Then there you were, on my skype, one fine Thursday morning. I know it was a Thursday, because that is when I work from home. Or pretend to. That day I did not work. We tried an actual call, but my connection was too weak. So we chatted back and forth, in very long convoluted Shona sentences, (on my part). You were having such fun! From that day on, the pattern was set. We would always communicate in ChiKaranga. Real deep, ChiKaranga. The way our grandparents spoke it. Not even used in any text book or novel. I barely dream, think, or work in Shona most times. But you made me use it, consistently. It felt good. This was the closest we could get to our home, I realize now.  Speaking ChiKaranga, made us feel as if we were back kwaNhema, or KwaMazvihwa, chatting away on the way to the river, the cattle dip-tank, the fields, or looking for firewood. We became each other’s family for those few minutes. Reliving the lives that we had left behind. Filling our souls with the joy of being Zimbabweans, conversing in our own language, hearing each other, no explanations needed, no strange looks given, we were just ourselves.

Mamuka sei vaChiheee! Kwakadii ko kuWenera zvokwadi? You would cheerily write to me, whether I was online or not. You called me VaChihee, short for Chihera. I called you Musaigwa, or Dziva Guru. Over the years, I looked forward to your messages when I came online. I knew there would always be one from you. I soon figured out that you were techno-challenged, so you had no idea what skype icon showed you I was online or offline. You just wrote away. Long thoughts, ideas, questions, whole essays. Then you would eventually realize, three or five ‘kombozishens’ later that I was not responding. Then you would rudely sign off – ‘haa dhemeti! Muripi ko vaChihee zvokwadi? Regai ndibudevo pamukova’. You have no idea what pleasure these conversations gave me. Or the depth of sadness that sometimes they drove me to. We spoke about our country. Tried to decipher the political currents. The social currents. Eventually we would get tired of that, and come back to talking about books, writing, what we were each up to. As usual I would talk too much about my kids, my family, my latest dramas. You enjoyed my dramas. Like the big brother you were, you offered advice about men. Let’s just say, you didn’t seem to understand much about your own species, except those of the Musaigwa clan. On those you were dead accurate. Sorry, I mean very accurate.

They say you were in something called ‘self-imposed-exile’. I have no idea what that means. Maybe that is what they say about all of us who left? Such a bizarre concept though. How does one impose exile on themselves? Can one choose ‘exile’, when you have a happy, fabulous home? Your own familiar people and things? Is it really a choice to be in some far away cold, nay frozen place? The type of cold that freezes your blood, your hair, your nose, and brain? That is what you told me the cold weather did to you in Norway. You said ‘vuruzvi bgangu bgagwamba kuti gwa? Kuda izvozvi habguchimo vuruzvi bgacho?’(I am not going to keep translating all that. I realize I may have lost our Zezuru speaking friends, but you and I understood each other).

They have been writing a lot about your so called self-imposed-exile. I didn’t ask why you were in Norway. It was not my business to ask. Actually, I did not want to know. You were just there.  You could not go back home you said. You wished every day to go home. Who was I to judge or question your choices? Or anyone else’s for that matter? We all have our demons, real and imagined. We all make choices, good and bad. Some choices are made for us by others. We accept, or we fight. But nobody, nobody, can ever know, understand, or judge another's reality, or that which they have never lived. I accepted it for what it was. Your life. Your truth. Much as I, or any of your other friends may have wanted you to be somewhere else, to do something else, this was your life, Musaigwa. Yours. As my friend Hope Chigudu always reminds me- you can only love another human being EJ, but you can’t live their lives for them.

We spoke about our home, Zimbabwe. A lot. Too much. Interestingly, we spoke a lot about our rural homes. The places we were born and grew up in, as if regressing in time would make us happier. or was it that those were the places where we had been truly happy in our Zimbabwe? We were united in our grief over the loss of our mothers. In the last six months, that is what we mostly spoke about. You, regretting that you had not been there for your mum, in her last days, her burial. That was eating you up. You worried that you may not end up buried next to her. I didn’t know what to say, because I could not relate. I buried my mum. I know where she is. If I had a choice, I would be sitting on her bed every day for the rest of my life. In Gweru. But there is what I wish for, then there is real life. I chose to be where I am now. An exile of sorts. But this is not about me. This is about you, Musaigwa.

When I moved back to Zimbabwe in 2011, you were so excited on my behalf. You wrote me long instructions about what I should do when I got there; Find Ray, say this or that to him. Find Chirikure, talk to him about x and q. Go to the UZ Senior Common room, (I still can’t fathom what charm that place held for you?), see who is still there, say this and that to Dr. XX and ask Professor XX why he is saying whatever. Go along Masvingo road, there is a great place for roasting meat. Seriously Musaigwa? Every Thursday, again working from home, I made time to specifically chat to you on skype. I gave you blow by blow accounts of what I had done, who I had seen. You started living vicariously through me, 'Hekanhi! Ndokudini paya imwi vaChihee?' You egged me on.  Sometimes your enthusiasm and excitement broke my heart. Hearing about your home, your favourite places, things that mattered to you, interpreted and experienced by another could not have been fun. I could hear you cheering me on. Cheering our Zimbabwe on.  You even followed Zimbabwe cricket and rugby, but as you said, ‘haa tongomirira kuvona unosumudza mukombe, kana kubvisa nhembe, kuti tizive kuti hwahwinha ndiyani! Kungovukera vozvangu kuvidza zuva. Rakibhi ndakaidzidzepivo Hove yangu?’  The joys of exile.

You were devastated when I moved back to Johannesburg last year. You tried to understand. You cross examined me about the choice I had made. Till the day you died, I don’t think you ever quite understood how a whole grown Chihee could run away from Jesus’ earthly deputies and the now seemingly ubiquitous goblins! My explanations seemed too frivolous, or too bizarre. This was not the Zimbabwe you knew, or expected to hear about. So you were crushed, and am sure, you didn’t forgive me.

In our last conversation, we spoke about me writing a book. You asked me to come to Norway so we could write my long over-due novel. You said you would ghost write it for me. I will take you up on that. I will just not be coming to Norway, because you are not there anymore. I will come see you where they have laid your body, in our home, Zimbabwe. We will continue our conversations neChiKaranga. You, my now favourite ghost, can write that novel for me. See you soon Musaigwa.  Dziva Guru.

I miss you a lot already.

Yours,

VaChihee.

 

 

Nobody tells you

Nobody tells you how it really feels to lose your mother. Books have been written. Movies made. Songs written. But nobody can ever describe accurately how it will feel. How your life will change. 
You can read the books. You can hum the songs. Or even create your own poems. Yet you too can not tell anybody how you feel.

The clever psychiatrists tell you about those seven, or is it six, maybe five steps of dealing with grief? What they don't tell you is that life is not a series of neat little steps. They can not predict that you will  miss steps two and three, then you twist an ankle when you get to five, and you have to recalculate, make your way back to the beginning. They can write as many manuals. Give you as many prescriptions to staunch the pain, but nobody will tell you how it will all end. Nobody can describe how your insides will feel like they are being ripped out of you, slowly, roughly, ripped, ripped, ripped, till you feel you can not go on. You can't get out of bed. You just want to lie down.

 The philosophical will tell you that time heals all wounds. What they wont tell you is that the dry skin you see at the top hides a wound so deep nobody has ever dared looked too closely at it. That is because it is so deep, eating away at your heart, your soul, head sometimes, night and day. They can not tell how to cure that deep one, because that would be admitting the truth - nobody knows how much time is needed to truly heal. Is it is a year? It certainly can not be three years. I have clocked three today. Maybe five? Or will that be 24? They will even tell you to 'move on'. As if putting one foot in front of the other is as easy as all that - after your mother dies. They will not tell you that it is ok to not want to move, on, up, sideways. Anywhere.
All I know is that this day, this third anniversary feels exactly as painful as it did on January 23rd, 2012. Exactly the same. I am reliving the early morning call, she has been taken to hospital. She is not opening her eyes. She is gone. I clutch my stomach. Drop the phone. Scream. Howl. Nobody will hear me today. I am on my own. I will do this alone. That will be the only difference.

The cluelessly- insensitive  tell you; Ah she had lived a full life. She was 76? Ah she had eaten many Christmases! They will tell you to celebrate her life. But what does that all mean? Because she was 76 she was now excess people? Were you supposed to stop needing her at some age? What age would that have been? 67? 59? There is no script for the celebration you are meant to have. Her favourite hymns don't help. Wearing her dress every Sunday wont make the pain go away. Repeating her most important words does not make you smile. What nobody tells you is that it does not matter at what age your mother dies. She will always be your mother. You will always need her. It does not matter if she was on life support. Or she was a dancer. You just want her because. And no, you do not want to celebrate her long life, because you still needed her. You want her here. Today. To hold you like you are 3 days old, breast-feed you, and tell you that she will always be here. Nobody tells you that for many years afterwards there will be days when for no reason, you will curl up in a foetal position, weep, throw up, and weep some more, like your mother's baby that you are.

The movie makers make it all look glamorous. Admirable even. The choreographed 'dealing with grief' sequences. The triumphant heroine surviving against all odds. Winter turning into spring and then summer! Nobody makes a movie about the permanent winter that stays in your soul. No movie prepares you for the times you are going to go crazy. Mad. Nobody tells you that you will wake up in the middle of the night and dial her number, because you forgot to remind her to take her medication. The days when you go shopping for her size 46DD bra, and buy a whole half a dozen of them, completely oblivious to the fact that she is not here to wear them. Then as you remember, hours later, how you will howl like some animal you can not name. Get up. Find scissors. Chop them all up and chuck them in Piki't'up bins.  Or the time you travel back to London, a whole three years later. Get on a train in that sleet and hail. Find that lovely shop with dresses she liked and buy two of them. Then you get back to your hotel room, pleased with yourself. Then you reach for your phone to tell her.....
Nobody tells you about the way other passengers will request to be moved away from you on that plane because again you bought her favourite perfume in duty free. Then as you fastened your seat belt, you remembered, and howled like that nameless animal. And Mrs-what's- her -name asks to be moved away from your craziness because she does not know how long it will last on this 11 hour flight. Or when you go back to home town, you swear you saw her on the street, and you will walk behind her, run and overtake her, smile widely at the stranger in front of you. And she clutches her bag in fright running away from crazy you. You may even go sit on her grave for hours. Hoping she will come out and start walking. Isn't that what her faith was about - the belief in miracles. You want some of that. Nobody tells you the sun will set. She will not come out. The grave diggers will talk about you and your craziness, laughing as they tell you to hurry up and get out of the cemetery. The next day you will come back again. And the following week. You will not tell your father or your children that you were there to visit your mother because you are too scared they will take you to the 'healer'.

The religious will tell you to look to the one in the sky. That she knows what is best. You will believe this, and because your mother was a believer too, you will go to her chosen place of organized religion. Faithfully. You will raise your voice. You will weep more. You will even acquire all the tools of religion, the hymnals, the reference book/s, the uniforms, participate in the rituals. Yet, you will slowly realize you are going in there to look for your mum. That all you keep searching for is her face amongst those women in red blouses. You want to see her on the program, leading, preaching. Alive! But because she is not here, you realize that you blame the one in the sky, you seriously question their wisdom, their project. You want to choke him, kick her all over the place, until she tells you why she took your mother, what the grand plan is, and when she will bring her back? Each time friends and family send you verses, chapters, songs, which they think are helpful, you can not tell them that you really do not want those, because your mother was the one good at reading, interpreting, and making sense of them for you. You grin and bear the preachy types because you have no words to describe for them how this grief feels, how none of what they say is helping, because they are not you, and she was not their mother. You want to tell them, 'go bury your mum first, and then come open that book with authority!" But you don't. You smile. You mutter encouraging assent to their messages and supplications. Then you realize that keeping that thing called faith is harder than what anybody told you. And at this moment you do not want any evidence of things not seen. You just want your mother, who you can touch, and feel.

You can lose as many relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues, or even lovers, dozens of them,  before you lose your mother. You think you have become a veteran of funerals, of grief, that you have mastered those eight steps in the manual. You even develop new routines. A clutch of coping mechanisms. You see others lose their mothers, you empathize. You even think you have learnt a  lot, just by looking. Nobody ever, ever prepares you for the real deal. Nobody tells you that the death of your mother will slice through your inner core much more than when you lost that brother, that sister, or that wonderful love of your life.  Nobody can tell you, because she was not all those others. What can prepare you for the day you want to cook rice with peanut butter and you do not know how much water to use, how much peanut butter to make it in that special Mberengwa-Ndebele-MaSibanda way only SHE knew how? Her younger sister, even if she had only the one like mine, will suggest too much salt. Nobody can organize Christmas lunch the way your mother did. When you try it, the chicken comes out all wrong. The bread falls apart when you cut it. The jollity looks forced and contrived. Nobody tells you that after you bury your mum, you will go back to bed at noon on Christmas day because you do not know how to recreate the joy and infuse her spirit into it.

To my friend Tawanda Mutasah; You asked me these questions on that lovely summer evening in downtown Manhattan last year, "How do you cope? How long will this pain last? How do you hold all of this trauma inside each day, and continue to walk around, work as if your mother is still here?"  This Tawanda is my long-winded way of saying - Sorry honey. I do not know. I do not know because I do not know. I am not you. Your mother was not my mother. You are my friend. I love you deeply. I can tell you many things about anything else that we share. But today, three years later, I can say with confidence - nobody can ever tell you, because they do not know. Nobody tell you accurately what losing your mother feels like and how you deal with it because the pain, the pain, is just too deep, too wide and too overwhelming to even begin to describe. They will never tell you because they do not understand. Only you do.