Drops of rain fall continuously against my umbrella as I walk through the crowd muttering greetings. Guests try to stop me and wish me well but I just move forward, barely hearing them and replying with “excuse me, thank you for coming.”
I find myself seated at the front of the arranged chairs with my siblings on either side of me. “He’s really gone, huh?” My sister whispers but I hear it as loud as if she had announced it with a microphone.
“Yea,” more tears fall from my face and I clutch her arm as she clutches mine. “But we’ll be alright, we’ve got ourselves.” She just nods and holds me tighter.
“Today, we gather to honour and celebrate the life of Oluwafemi Alexander Davidson…” The minister begins.
The sky turns dark and rain suddenly starts pouring down heavily. The minister mentions that it is a good omen. I shut my umbrella and allow the drops to fall on me throughout the ceremony.
“Thank goodness dad didn’t want guests coming over to the house. I don’t know how many more times I can ‘say thank you for coming’ and reply ‘yes he was’ to people saying he was a good man and didn’t deserve to leave so soon.” My brother says as he enters the living room and takes off his jacket.
I shrug and hold my mother tighter against me as she dabs her eyes with a handkerchief. I press a kiss to her forehead. “Mum, we’ll be fine. We will be, our family will not fall apart. You will not fall apart. We are all here. Temi, Bolu and I are here, and we are enough for ourselves.”
“Thank you baby.” She smiles softly. “What do we do now?” She moves out of my embrace and looks at me like she would to a role model, or a saviour. She was hopeless.
I had consciously decided to be the strongest person and hold us all together. My siblings competed with me in that and I instead diverted all my energy to mum. She and dad loved each other everyday like they had just fallen in love the day before. I couldn’t imagine the loss she had to endure.
“Right now mummy, we’re going to have lunch. And then we can deliberate on how to start taking care of his things, what we’re touching and what we’re not.”
“I love you guys so so much.” She says as we head over to the dining room.
One week later, we go through the same process again as it rained heavily. That day, we all lost it and I was in no state to be the glue, nor did Temi and Bolu. And certainly not mum as she was lowered into the ground.
