4 4 THE TEARS MY DAD SHED

It was the coldness and heaviness of my mum's hand on my forehead that woke me up. It felt like a tonne of bricks and made the back of my neck ache. I had been dreaming about fairies soaring high up the starry sky. Their wings were colourful, transparent and fiery. It looked like fireworks were exploding out of them in various colours. The fairies made flute-like sounds with a low deep drum-like rhythm as they flew. It made me happy.

They were zigzagging around a bright light that was rising higher and higher towards the other stars that hung higher in the sky. It raced at them at breakneck speed and the light, even though bright, somehow had a familiar air about it.It made me think about my mum. Actually, it felt as though it was my mum. In my dream, I was calling out to it.

"Mummy, wait for me."

It slowed down a bit as though it truly was waiting for me, and I suddenly felt all my worries disappear, and sweet happiness embraced me. I felt like there was nothing to fear in the whole wide world and that my mum would always look after me. As I looked at the light hovering on one spot in the sky with the fairy's zigzagging around it and their wings burning, I heard my mum's voice in my mind and felt her presence right in my heart.

"I am up here in the skies looking down at you always. Whenever you need me, just look up at the stars and call my name and I will twinkle down at you. When I twinkle once it means I am telling you that I hear you, twice it means I will do something about what you want and when I twinkle thrice it means I am saying that I love you." Then it shot up even faster and faster until it disappeared amongst the millions of stars up in the sky.

It was then I felt the heaviness and coldness of my mum's hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes and saw Kompa staring at me with very sad eyes. I knew in that instant that my mum had gone into the forever sleep. She was not going to wake up ever again.

I sat up abruptly, and my mum's hand fell off my head.Then I turned towards her. She was lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed. And she was smiling. I had never seen her look as beautiful and peaceful as she looked that day. There was a faint glow around her, and she smelt like fruits. A sweet smell that tickled my nostrils.

I reached out and touched her.

She was cold and stiff.

I had never seen a dead person before, but I knew that my mum was now a dead person. A body that couldn't move, or smile, or laugh, or open its eyes, or call my name, or stand up, or walk. It couldn't do anything any longer. It was that thought that made me cry. It was sudden. I didn't even feel the tears approach. The tears just rushed at me and overtook me and flowed out of my eyes and down my cheeks as I called out her name, over and over and over again.

"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!"

And when she didn't respond, I began to plead with her to get up. I held onto her right shoulder and shook her continuously.

"Mummy, please wake up. Mummy, don't sleep, wake up. Mummy, don't leave me alone. Mummy, wake up. Mummy, please don't die. Mummy!"

I began to tremble as tears fell down my chin and dropped on my red and blue superman pyjamas. I wanted to scream but my sobs choked in my throat and instead of a scream, a deep moan came out of my mouth. It was so heavy; it pushed me down on the bed, right beside my mum.

I lay there beside her, moaning and calling her in my mind.

Kompa placed his paw on my shoulder and slowly rocked me as he mimicked my moaning sound.

And even though he was moaning, I could hear his exact words.

"Please don't cry. She has just left her body and gone to a place where there is no more pain. She is happy."

I said to him through my tears, "But she is here."

"No, what you see is just her body. It is like looking at your clothes when you are no longer wearing them. They are just clothes, not you. Once you are no longer wearing them, they don't mean anything again. What you see is just the body she wore as clothes. She is no longer wearing them."

"Is she the light I saw in my dream?"

"Yes."

"How do you know? Did you see the light in your dream too?"

"I saw the light leave her body while you slept. She told me to take care of you."

"Really?"

"Yes. She is always with us," he said smiling.

And I lay there looking at Kompa. He kept smiling and the more he did, the better I felt.

"Now you have to call your dad and tell him that mum is now a star in the sky," Kompa said a few minutes later.

I sat up, reached over for my mum's cell phone, which was on the bedside table and picked it up.

I tapped on the screen with my finger, and the keypad came on.

I punched in the passcode my mum had shown me two days before, and the screen came alive.

It had a picture of my mum, my dad, my sister, Kompa and myself.

All of us were smiling at the camera.

Happy.

I began to feel sad again as I stared at the picture.

Kompa nudged me on lightly with his head on my elbow.

I looked down at him.

He nodded.

"Call Dad," he said again.

I nodded.

I could hear my mum's voice speak to me.

"If anything happens to me, I want you to call your dad and tell him exactly what is happening. He would know what to do."

She had said that to me when she had started to fall sick again. Usually, my aunty would be at home with us, but she had gone to visit her own mother who was ill at the village. When I had asked my mum if she didn't want to go to the hospital, she had smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. I will be okay. But if I feel worse, I will tell you to call your dad, if I don't tell you because I am in too much pain, then you call your dad and do exactly what he tells you to do," she said.

I found my dad's name on the contacts' list.

It was saved as "Baby Boy".

Mum always called him Baby Boy and he called her Baby Girl. I found it really funny and would laugh and laugh when they called each other that. And they would simply smile and ignore me. But Eghe Boom Boom actually called them that. There was no Daddy and Mummy for her.

I pressed the call button and after a moment, it began to ring.

Thrice.

Then a click.

And my dad's voice came on.

"Hey, Baby Girl."

I opened my mouth to respond and instead of words, all I could manage were sobs. All of a sudden, I felt very sad. The sadness was like waves at the beach. It rolled over me again and again.

And I cried and cried and cried.

While Dad kept asking, in a voice that was filled with so much worry, "Osaik what happened? Osaik, tell me what happened? Why are you crying? Osaik, where is your mum?"

It was the final question that brought out an answer from me.

"Mum has gone to be a star in the sky."

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And my dad began to scream the word.

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

When he stopped screaming, he started crying. It was a cry that felt like someone had wounded him so badly and the pain was so great that all he could do was wail.

I sat there on the bed, the phone pressed to my ear, and I wailed with him as I looked down at my mum, her eyes closed, and her face calm in peace.

Then Kompa held the duvet in his mouth and slowly pulled it up over her shoulder and neck until it covered her face before he came and lay his head on my lap and began to wail too. His wail was a cross between a growl and a howl, but it was not as loud as my dad's or mine.

I hung up the phone a few minutes later and lay there by my mum and Kompa, remembering all the good times I had with her. I finally dozed off and was woken with a start when Kompa began barking.

I sat up in bed for a moment before I heard the honking at the gate. It was a honk I recognised and it belonged to my uncle, who was my dad's older brother. He was the first person to come to the house in the starry moonlit darkness of that early morning.

I heard the gate opening. Dauda, the gateman knew my uncle, so he opened the gate to him without much ado. Dauda had no idea what had happened in the house, since as usual, my mum had said goodnight to him the previous night, locked the front door and had gone to her room where she had suddenly had a crisis. And the way our house was built, no matter how much you shouted inside, no one outside would hear you.

I remembered telling my mum that I could call Dauda to help her as she moaned in pain and all she did was shake her head. I wondered why she didn't want him to help her or why she didn't call someone else to take her to the hospital that night.

I found myself thinking that maybe she had simply been tired of falling sick and allowed herself to leave us to become a star in the sky. But I know she loved us too much to want to leave us unless she had no choice and something more powerful was taking her away from us. She must have thought that the crisis that night was like the other ones she had gone through before and she felt it would go as usual and she would be well again but it didn't.

This was the thought that consoled me. The thought that made me believe that she didn't just get tired of the sickness and abandoned us. The thought that said that all she did that night was try not to bother anyone else with her sickness. She didn't like people treating her with pity and thinking that she couldn't do what others could do.

The truth was that my mum and my dad always kept whatever happened in the house inside the house. They were very private people.

My mum would often say to me, "Be cautious of what you tell people and hide your secrets behind your smiles so that people would not know how to easily predict you and have what to use against you."

That night, I was forbidden to step out of the house. It was an order that was given by my dad when he spoke to me over the phone after his wail had ceased.

"I want you to stay there by your mother. Don't leave the room unless you want to use the toilet or get something to eat or drink in the kitchen, but don't go outside of the house. I will send your uncle over, and he will take care of everything. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Good boy."

Then he went silent for a moment and I didn't know whether I was supposed to hang up the phone or to simply make more conversation and when he still didn't say anything, I decided to speak. It was a question I asked him that made him continue the conversation until we finally ended the call before I slept and was woken up by Kompa barking when my uncle's car honked at the gate.

My uncle came into the house along with three of my other uncles and one of my aunts. The cries they let out when they walked into the bedroom were louder than the scream my dad had made over the phone. My aunty threw herself on my mum and kept screaming her name. It looked like she expected my mum would open her eyes and sit up, but when she didn't my aunty hugged her tight and screamed even louder. One of my uncles ran to the wall and began hitting his head on it as he cried out to God in our native language for Him to wake up my mum. Another one of my uncles walked over to him and pulled him away from the wall but he struggled with him and began to hit his head harder on the wall. As the drama unfolded around Kompa and me, a feeling of panic rose in me and I pulled Kompa closer to me and began to play back in my mind the conversation I had with my dad over the phone after I told him about mum.

"How is Eghe Boom Boom?" I had asked.

"She is fine. I am looking at her right now. Sleeping.''

"What will you tell her?"

"The truth."

"But will she understand?"

"I don't know."

"I don't want her to cry."

"I don't want her to cry too, but sometimes crying is good. It reduces your pain and makes you feel better."

"I don't feel better."

"Don't worry, in time, you will feel better."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Your mother would want you not to feel sad. She wants you to be happy."

"Kompa said so."

"I see Kompa is still speaking to you."

"He always speaks to me."

"How is he feeling?"

I looked down at Kompa, his head on my lap and said, "He is okay. He was crying with me before, but now he is just laying here."

Kompa made a guttural sound. I heard what he said clearly and translated it to Dad.

"He said hello."

Kompa made a series of other sounds. They sounded like him swallowing some invisible food. I translated it again.

"He says he is very sorry about mum."

"You are sure he said that?"

"Yes, Dad. I told you, he says a lot of stuff."

"Okay, thank him for me."

I spoke to Kompa.

"Dad says thank you."

Kompa responded with a short yawn that sounded like a rush of air. I translated it again.

"He says 'you are welcome.' "

My dad inhaled and exhaled with a sigh, then he spoke, "Osaik, I am so sorry that I am not with you right now, but I want you to know that I am very proud of you.Thank you for being so strong for your mother and me…"

The voice of my oldest uncle broke into the conversation that I was replaying in my mind.

"Osaik!"

I looked over at him and saw from the frown on his face that he had been calling my name for a while.

"Are you okay?" he asked me with a little bit of worry in his voice.

I nodded.

"Good. Take the dog and go wait in the living room."

I wanted to tell him to call Kompa his name instead of the dog and also tell him that I wanted to stay with my mum, but I was too tired, too confused and too afraid, so I did as he said. I was alone with them and I knew that obeying them was the only choice I had. As I walked out of the room with Kompa, I had the first realisation that even though my mum was lying on the bed, she was actually no longer with me. I knew that if she was, she would have told my uncle not to speak so harshly to me.

When I got to the living room, I saw my mum smiling at me from a picture that hung from the wall, and I began to cry again. Kompa stood by me and rubbed his head against my leg in comfort while the sounds of my aunty crying and my uncles talking filtered in from the bedroom.

We stood there crying for a while until we heard the gate open again and an ambulance drove into the compound.I walked over to the window and looked out to see Dauda talking to the driver. Then my uncle walked into the living room, opened the front door and walked out of the house without glancing at me or Kompa. He went to the ambulance and spoke to the driver and then to Dauda, who let out a shout, placed his hands on his head in horror and looked towards the house.

The driver and three other men came out of the ambulance. They all wore grey overalls. Two of them opened the back door of the ambulance and brought out a stretcher and a bag. They all walked behind my uncle as he headed back into the house, while Dauda stood there staring at the house with his hands still on his head and his mouth wide open.

When the men walked into the living room, they stopped abruptly and stared at Kompa. My uncle looked at them and then at Kompa before he spoke with a slight chuckle.

"You people are not afraid of dead bodies but you are afraid of dogs?"

"Dead bodies don't bite," the driver responded as he stared down at Kompa.

"Don't worry, this is a good dog. Don't be afraid."

I wanted to correct my uncle again when he called Kompa a dog because I thought it was very rude to call him a dog when he knew his name, but I was still too tired and sad, so I stood there with Kompa and stared at the men as they walked cautiously by us and headed down to the bedroom where my aunty was still crying.

We stood there looking down the corridor as we heard voices murmuring and my aunty crying louder than before and after a while, the four men in grey clothes carried my mum into the living room. They had laid her on the stretcher and covered her with a white sheet. My uncles, and my aunt, who was still wailing loudly, walked behind them as they carried my mum out of the house to the ambulance. I stood there silently for a moment before Kompa walked after them and I followed him.

By the time we got outside and stood on the staircase, the men were putting my mum into the back of the ambulance as two of my uncles held back my struggling and wailing aunty. Dauda stood there watching them. His hands were still on his head, and he was crying but he wasn't as loud as my aunty.

After a moment, he turned and saw us watching him. He removed his hands from his head, wiped the tears on his cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt, walked over to Kompa and I and squatted in front of me. Then he asked me in broken English.

"How you dey?"

"Fine."

"Why you no come tell me say your mama don die?"

I was silent. When he saw I didn't respond but instead looked down at my feet, beside which Kompa sat, he continued.

"I for kon help you inside house. Next time, make you come outside kon call me if trouble dey inside, you hear me?"

I nodded.

"Oya, sorry, ko." He said it in a very sad way as he held my right shoulder and squeezed it gently.

I felt sadness wash over me again as I stood there with him and Kompa while two of the men got into the back of the ambulance with my mum and another shut the door behind them and joined the driver in the front cabin. My older uncle walked over to his car and got in, two of my other uncles joined him and my aunty and the last of my uncles stayed behind with Kompa and me.

As we watched the ambulance, which had its siren blaring, drive away with my mum's body and my uncle's car followed, my aunty fell silent.

I wasn't really close to my aunty and my uncle, so I kept myself locked in my room with Kompa. Few hours later, my aunty knocked on the door and whispered.

"Osaik, are you okay?" she sounded worried.

"Yes."

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

"You know you have to eat something?"

"I know."

"What do you want to eat?"

"Nothing."

"There is nothing like nothing, you have to eat something."

"I am not hungry."

"Open the door."

"I will come out when I am hungry."

"Okay, what of Kompa, let him come out, so we can feed him."

Kompa barked loud once, whimpered, wagged his tail and lay down by my feet as I sat on my bed.

"He said he doesn't want to eat."

"Stop that rubbish. Dogs don't talk. I will come back in an hour and whether you like it or not, both of you will come out of that room and eat something."

I came out of the room later on and Kompa and I ate as my aunty watched and kept saying over and over again, "Sorry, you hear? Sorry."

The more she said it, the sadder I became, and when my eyes misted over, I turned to her and politely said, "Aunty, if you keep saying that, I will cry."

It was the truth.

"Oh, sorry, I don't want you to cry. Okay?"

I nodded.

"Sorry, you hear? Sorry."

Kompa looked up at her from his food bowl and barked once. I translated immediately.

"He said you should stop saying it."

My aunty looked down at Kompa. She didn't believe he actually said that. Then she kissed her teeth and walked away.

It was the beginning of an uncountable number of things that happened before my dad and my sister returned from London.

My dad came back with my sister the next day. When they walked into the house, I screamed in happiness. It was as though I was seeing them for the first time in many years instead of the one week and a few days it actually was since they had both travelled and left me with my mum, who was not ill at the time.

Kompa barked as I ran to my dad who went down on his knees and opened his arms to me. I ran into them and he hugged me tightly.We stayed in that position for a short while. Eghe Boom Boom stood there watching us. There were no words.

Kompa walked around us, rubbing his head against us and when Eghe Boom Boom ran down the corridor towards my mum's room, Kompa ran after her.

Eghe Boom Boom kept calling out as she ran to the room.

"Baby Girl!"

She called it over and over again as Kompa barked softly. It was his attempt at distracting her.

My dad and I broke the hug and looked after her as she got to the closed door. She started knocking softly on it and calling out for mum.

"Baby Girl!"

We stood there staring at her.

Frozen like statues.

The only other sounds we could hear were my uncle speaking over the phone further away in the living room, my aunty in the kitchen, and various voices speaking outside in the compound.

Kompa looked back at us and barked thrice.

I turned to my dad and translated to him.

"He wants us to go get Boom Boom."

My dad broke out of his frozen state and rushed over to my sister. He lifted her from the floor and hugged her to himself.

I walked to them as he spoke to her.

She pointed to the door.

"I want Baby Girl."

"Remember what I told you. Mummy is gone to a place where we cannot see her again," my dad's voice was a low whisper as he spoke to my sister.

"I want Baby Girl," my sister's voice became louder.

"She is looking at you right now and telling you that she loves you."

"Where?" my sister asked, looking around.

"You can't see her but she can see you."

"Can you see her?" my sister asked him.

"No, but I know she is looking at us."

"When is she coming back?"

My dad hesitated. I could see that he didn't know how to answer the question.

My sister asked again, "When is Baby Girl coming back?"

My dad kissed her on the forehead and whispered to her.

"She doesn't need to come back if she is already here with us. You will not see her again, but you will always feel her around you. She loves you. She has gone to heaven, and one day we all will see her again."

My sister kept silent for a moment. She looked at the closed door and then looked at me. I tried to keep a straight face but when I saw the confused look on my sister's face, I suddenly began to cry. It was as if a breeze of sadness blew across me and then blew across her and my dad.

She shouted, "Nooooooo!" and then burst out in tears before she continued between loud sobs, "I want Baby Girl!"

My dad tried to console her, and as his words came out, they choked in his throat and he broke down and began to cry.

I moved closer to him and hugged his legs as I cried.

My dad put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer to him. Kompa continued to walk around us while rubbing his head on our legs and making a low whining sound.