A letter to my late grandmother.

Khulu
Today is the 8th of June 2020 (I wrote this a while ago though), an entire year since we lost you. I remember how much I cried on this day when Akhona told me that you had landed back in hospital almost a month after you got out, not knowing that you had already taken your last breath. I remember asking my friends to pray with me because I just couldn't understand why you had been going through so much. I wept because I just wanted you to be okay and recover without the rollercoaster of feeling like you were on the way to recovery before things went south again. I cried because I felt that you had suffered so much and I just wanted you to be at peace. I remember crying in my prayers that night, and how the next morning my period came early from all the strain of the crying. I remember how I was in the bedroom when I heard the gate opening and hearing Mkhulu Mdu and daddy Nhlanhla's voices, and just knowing what they came to tell us.

I remember it all like it was yesterday.

A year later, I still wish you were here. Here to witness me getting 3 distinctions and Okuhle moving to Durban and going to school with Akhona. I wish you were here to witness how beautiful your house is, even though you letting go of your precious flowerbed was going to be close to impossible. I wish I could see you smiling with pride and awe after seeing the final product and saying something along the lines of "ikwami la? Basebenzile abantwana bami!" or at least something like that.

I just miss having you around.

Not only in the flesh, but you being fully present. I miss how your face would light up when we came for the weekend or holiday, but less than an hour later complain of the noise we were making from the excitement of being reunited. I miss how you'd yell at TV characters when danger was lurking and be so irritated by their stupidity, as if they could hear you (I admit I have a milder case of the same problem😹🤦🏽‍♀️). I miss you shouting at us telling us to switch the TV off even though we just went to the bedroom for 2 seconds cause you just didn't like the noise of the tv. I miss hearing you laugh or even just giving us that look you gave us when sidlala ngawe or sikuteketisa cause you could see right past our silliness. I miss how, when you were still working, you'd bring us the randomest things like avocados and sweets and fruits.

Funny enough I miss you just shouting at us.

The last time I saw you, the last month I spent with you, it was not easy. It was not easy seeing you not being your normal self. It hurt me, I yearned for you to snap back to normal. And deep down in my heart, as much as I wanted you to be at peace, i really didn't want you to pass away. I wanted you to conquer, to snap back to normal. To go back to the Khulu that we knew and so desperately wanted back no matter how much she shouted about everything and killed our vibe. But I guess life has a way of ignoring what we want sometimes.

I'm just happy that my last memory with you, you were smiling and saying we should come back soon. I so desperately wanted to see you when you were admitted into hospital in early May, but I later became grateful that I didn't. I was told of how it was so painful seeing you in pain the hospital, and while I would've loved to see you one last time, I'm glad that my last memory was of you smiling. In the last year I've learnt so much and heard so many stories about you that I didn't know. I've come to understand why you got so irritated when we were making a huge noise. I've come to realise that you were a simple human and you didn't care about the extravagant things. And in learning this, I wish I took the time to get to know you better. I wish I jumped to asking questions and trying to gain a better understanding rather than jumping to the conclusion that you just didn't want us to have fun. There's a lot more I understand now.

I'm not going to lie, it pains me that you're going to miss out and have already missed out on so much. You won't get to see your kids and grandkids walk down the aisle and start their own families. Enzo and Zee and the babies to come will only know of you through stories and pictures but won't get to experience you. You won't be able to see us graduate and become young responsible adults. I won't lie, that thought hurts.

But all in all, I hope you are finally at peace. I hope you're smiling down at us and all that we're achieving and beaming with pride, saying "izingane zami lezi!" Or something like that. I hope that you know, even though I didn't tell you nearly as enough as I should've, just how much I loved and cared for you. I hope that although I didn't really put it into words, that you felt it in my actions. Carrying on without you hasn't been the easiest, spending Christmas and the Jazz festival without you has been weird and felt off, but if you're at peace where you are, I can live with that.

Uqhubeke ukulala ngoxolo Ngcobo omkhulu. Uqhubeke ukusigada Mashiy'amahle.

~Aphiwe xx