An Open Letter to My Iyá

 ***A deep exhale...

Dear Mummy, 

My love. My heart. My Iyá.

My youthful Iyá

I have been running from writing this letter. 

I don't know how to accept that for the rest of my waking hours on earth, I will not be able to have any physical contact with you again. I can feel my heart painfully constricting every time this knowledge comes to mind. Many questions flood my mind, many that will probably not be answered in this lifetime. 

Pain & Unanswered Questions

Why did you not return to get a new prescription for your BP medication from your doctor? Did you get tired of the multiple meds you have been on all this while? Or did you honestly forget about it? I remember telling you and pleading with you to take care of yourself while I was leaving home to resume my new job role. Mummy, this was not the plan we had. I was supposed to settle in and then work towards getting my own place and have you come over so I could adequately take care of you and spoil you. What happened to all those prayers you would share with me on my birthdays - saying you would live long to carry my children? Mummy, my heart is weary and bleeding from the pain of your exit from this world. Nothing prepared me for this.

I was so used to you being so strong and resilient. You always recovered from any illness that God permitted you to bear. So, why was this one different. How could you have a stroke? What was bothering you that you couldn't share with me? I thought we were confidants? It couldn't be a money issue, as I always answered your audible and silent requests. So what could it have been? I know you always yearned to be a grandmother, and not having a biological one was a cross you bore with faith that God would answer in His own time. So, I am here, wondering what could have gone wrong? 

We were always chatting. I would tell you how my day was going. I would send you pictures of beautiful scenes on my commute to work or whenever I entered a beautiful church. Remember my pilgrimage to Walsingham? Remember how I placed a Video call across so you could pray to our lady of Walsingham? I did all that to get you excited to see how I would take you to these places when you finally came over. So now that you are gone, what should I do with these plans?

Mummy, you knew how much I love you and yet, how could you have the heart to leave me behind? You even took my only brother with you. Did you not know that contributing to your welfare was one of the core motivations of my life - to want to earn more, to want to progress in my career? I wanted to become a strong pillar you could lean on - to support you both, so how could you leave me like this? 

We were planning your birthday thanksgiving. I was looking forward to having your radiant smile that day, but then, 3 days to that day was when the stroke hit you. I had believed God so dearly that you would recover from it, and I had planned to have a great thanksgiving after your recovery. I prayed for your healing and trusted God to act as He always does. You were recovering, and it hurt me that I couldn't be by your side to look after you due to the distance. I was shocked and in disbelief when I heard that you had left just 8 days after my birthday. August will never be the same for me again. While I was still trying to make sense of it all. Tunde left 8 days after your funeral, just after we had returned back to our base.

I hurt so much right now, mummy. Everything seems so fleeting at the moment. My world seems and looks grey without you in it. I miss the warmth of your tender care and affection. You always had a way of knowing when to call. Even when I was mentally stressed from the challenges of adapting to a new work environment and culture, hearing your voice was always soothing, and the reassurance of your constant prayers would bring me healing. So how am I supposed to continue without you now?

Memoirs & Gratitude

I look at our multiple chats and photographs, and I cannot believe life can be so fleeting. I cannot be upset with God because I know that He loves you more than I can ever love you, but this hurts so much, mummy. I wonder how God made this heart so resilient. I cannot imagine how I still carry on with my activities and hold onto Faith when I am still hurting and crying to sleep.

I am grateful that God gave me the previous job that required me to move back into our family home last year. Remember how we both laughed at the oddness of a job requiring me to move back to Benin from Lagos. I remember fighting with God in prayers, not wanting to return to Benin, and how you doubted that it was a good idea. When most of my peers were relocating out of the country or at least moving to the Capital, why was God leading me back to my origin? Now, looking at where I am now, I am so grateful He gave me the grace to obey blindly. I didn't know He allowed me to bond so deeply with you 🥺 - to be your much-needed gist partner, best friend, personal nurse, driver, and financer😅, for what has turned out to be the last opportunity I had.

We made many fond memories, which I will always treasure. Remember when we would get our hair done or when I would polish your nails for you? I remember how You walked to the gate to wave at me as I drove away to work & the excitement whenever I was done with work to return home. Your signature knocks on the door to my room, announcing your grand arrival with whatever meal/treat I may have brought back with me - at your disposal 😆, that your special chair at the corner, where you would sit and stay with me till when we would both agree not to allow dad feel too alone in the living area, and then you would sluggishly get up to return to him. 

Oh, Mummy. Thank you for your warmth. Your selfless, nurturing and sacrificial warmth turned me into this woman I believe you were, and still are, so proud of. 

I will never forget how you ran to me while I was so ill in my year 2 uni days. How you slept on the bare, cold floor because your heart wouldn't dare part with me until you saw me recover from that severe illness. 

I am not upset with you, mummy. I know you fought hard to stay. You were in so much pain that God, in His Mercy, had to heal you by taking you away to His eternal rest where you would not have to take any form of Insulin shots or deal with those Diabetic foot ulcers we battled in the last 2-3 years. You will no longer have to go about and rely on only one functioning eye. 

While I was helping out with composing your biography, I was in awe of how much of a strong woman you are, mummy, from surviving a 3rd-degree gas explosion to managing a diabetic lifestyle due to the steroids used for your treatment, to the countless trips to Eye foundation to have the bleeding in your only eye surgically removed in a painful procedure after losing the other to glaucoma. With all these, you still showed up whenever you were needed. You still cooked and packed my lunch boxes to work. Oh, I looked like a plump tomato from all your feeding 😂. You were always delighted whenever I put on weight. Are you upset now that I seem to have lost most of it? I'm sorry.

Thank you, mummy, for everything. For the memories and the care you showed us, especially me, your princess. Did you see your friends at your funeral? Mrs A**i and Mama G***a miss you so much. Mrs A*u was a wreck when I saw her last. I was told she tried all she could for you during your last days here. Daddy is staying positive and trying to be strong for us. We all miss you terribly. 

I am sorry you didn't get to see me married as you wanted. You are now with God, so I leave that with you and Him now 😁😋. 

This Isn't Goodbye

I promise to keep making you proud, mummy. I don't know if I will ever stop crying. I read somewhere that the deeper the love, the more profound the grief. Well, this means I won't be getting out of it anytime soon. 

I honestly don't know how I am going to cope without you. I don't know when colours will return back to my world. You took a part of me that I will never get back. I am sure I will reunite with you when my time here is up, but it still hurts as I don't know how long I must wait for that to happen. 

Keep resting with my dearest and harmless brother and all who have gone before you. Please don't forget about us, who are left with nothing but our memories with you.

Don't forget me, mummy, and thank you again for our many memories.

I love you, both in life and in death. 

No one compares to you.🌹 

Mummy & her princess

Your Princess,

Tolu, aka Pepper.