Count Your Blessings

Last night I visited this blog after not having been there in months. The last time I had attempted to post anything on this blog was in July 4. I could not even type one word. It was barely a month after I had come from Zimbabwe. I was under a heavy cloud of depression. I did not deal well with my sister's home going. Maybe I blamed myself that the last time we talked maybe she wanted to tell me something but no matter how much I went back to that conversation there was no hint that she knew she was going. I remember in September when I had told her that she needed better attention for her blood pressure. She assured me she was seeing a doctor regularly. Up to this day I wish I had gone to talk with him so that I could have an idea how he felt attending my sister. I had thought staying in Zimbabwe longer by the time I came back I would have recovered. Nothing was further from the truth. Yes I showed a façade so that my family would not worry about me because inwardly I was dying slowly. I was devastated by my sister's death, she was young, unlike my mom and dad. We are supposed to live past our prime but she was still in her prime and it hurt more than I let everyone know. Still in Zimbabwe I tried to surround myself with all my siblings as much as I could because I now have this gnawing fear that I can lose any of them in the blink of an eye. Maybe I wanted to absorb as much of them as I could.
Being here alone I would go for three or four days without taking a bath, I would eat one meal a day mostly cold cereal. I knew I was depressed but I just did not have the energy to do anything. I love going for walks and the only walks I took was going to the mulberry tree to pick up mulberries then I would post them on What'sapp another façade for my children to make them believe I was alright. I was not sleeping I spent days and nights on my couch wishing it could just swallow me and the pain would go away. No one can ever tell me that we grieve the same all the time. It was different for my sister. Up to now though the most difficult part is over I miss her. Knowing that I will never hear her voice nor touch and feel and smell her and see her smile that lit up the room has been the most difficult to accept. However, the Lord sent me angels and I am counting my blessings.
Late August my daughters Tatiana and Trish took me to NYC for the US Open Tennis Tournament. Maybe they noticed, maybe they did not that I was out of shape but they did not say anything. In the subway I could hardly keep up with them I would be out of breath. However, it was in those couple of days we were together I realized I had every reason to pick myself up and keep moving. How many mothers have children but the children careless about them. How many mother's wish they could do things with their children but the children do not have time for them. In that moment I realized I had been focusing on all the negative things that happened in my life and I had overlooked to count my blessings and name them one by one. I took time that first night to count my blessings, even in the passing of my sister. My kids had bought me the ticket to fly home of which without their assistance I could not afford. In her passing she afforded me the opportunity to reconnect with all my siblings and appreciate them more and show them I love them no matter our disagreements. Even from beyond she continues to reveal to me that it is not the bad things that divide us but how much weight we put on them and allow time to go by without forgiving and loving each other.
The New York trip was the second time my kids had planned something to make me realize some of my greatest wishes. Last year they planned a road trip to the west because I have always wished to see the Grand Canyon. It was the first time we went on a road trip and we touched 11 states. I did not pay a single cent for fuel, nor food, not accommodation, and neither did I drive. Who but a blessed woman can find positivity in loss. In the loss of my sister I have come to realize I am still alive and she would want to see me do the things I always wished to do. Maybe there is something I can do for her even from beyond. Love her still and know that she still lives in me and all of us who loved he and I should count my blessings because I had her for as long as I did and as an older sister.

The space betwen the words

This is not my own writing but a poem by Vicky Lettmann (Goodreads Author)  
I hope when you read it you enjoy it as much as I did.

Now you have gone into that space
Beyond language

You have gone into the pauses in our conversation
The time beyond time and time within time

You are in those moments when we sit in the audience
Waiting for the curtain to rise

And the end when the curtain has closed
And the actors have taken their bows

You are within the pauses of the bird’s song
When we strain to hear the next note

In the water between the fish
In the traveler’s silence within a foreign language

You are in the air that fills the sky
In the moments after the sunset

You are between night and day
Spirit next to soul

You are in the space between the words
The moment before the artist picks up her brush

Somehow this comforted me as I read.
I could see my sister as the space between Alexander and I
I could see her as the space between mom and Dad
The space between Foshi and Maidei
The space between Tonderai and Maidei
The space that I can never fill
But the space that is always filled

Grieving

I have lost so many family members it is even useless to count. My mom Selina in 2002, my dad Noel in 2005, my brother Fortunate in 2007, my sister Savior in 2012, and a niece Nyarai the same year. Growing up, death was a rare occasion. I remember the first person and when I first became aware of death as child, losing was my grandmother's brother, Sekuru Francis, and that must have been in  1968 or 1969. Then I later lost my grandmother Prisca in April 1977. Years and many years, would pass by before I lost any other close relatives.

However, at the turn of the century things changed not for the better but for the worse, as we started losing more and more of our family members. Maybe not the turn of the century, but the close of the last century. I remember losing my younger sister Maidei in 1993, then my eldest brother Stephen 1998, not mentioning my mother's first born Rhoderick, who was lost during the war, around 1975. All these deaths affected me in different ways but I always thought somehow it was a curse from above, maybe for something I had done.

I grieved for all their passing and most of all I would be surrounded by my family and sometimes cushioned by the innocence of being young. I am aware of Maidei's passing and how it affected me. To lose my youngest sister was just terrible and it took a toll on me as I could not accept her passing as part of life. She was the sweetest younger sister any older sister could ever wish for.  She had not yet turned 30, and I questioned why such a young life? With the passing of time I learned to live with her loss but still plagued by the idea that maybe there was something I could have done as an older sister to make her know she was loved. To this day I grieve for Maidei in silence as I miss what she could have taught me in this century, let alone her two young kids who grew up without a mother.

On February 28 2013, I received a call I had never imagined nor dreamed receiving in my life ever. I could not believe my ears when Andrew my younger sister Thandiwe's husband told me my beloved sister Tracy, the one a couple of years older than me, and the one I came after had suddenly passed away.  How does that happen? How could it have happened? How could she leave without bidding me farewell? Who was there to hold her hand as she was leaving? How come I had no inkling she was leaving? Had someone poisoned her? Had she been happy? What was ailing her? What did I say to her last time I spoke to her on the phone? When was the last time we spoke? All these questions were going through my mind as I struggled to deny what I had just heard. I did not want to accept that she was really gone forever and never to see her in this world again?

I prepared to go home that very night. I undertook the worst trip of my life, going to Zimbabwe for her funeral, just like I had done for my mother. I had vowed years earlier never to take that kind of trip but I knew if I had not gone I would have lost my mind. I met with my younger sister Doreen in Addis Ababa. That made me realize that sure enough my elder sister was no more. Arriving in Harare and seeing all my relatives who had come to welcome us if there is such a word during such a difficult time, made it real and all very real.
The worst part was to see her lifeless body in that casket, her eyes closed, and still as beautiful as though she was alive. I know people say do not weep as though you have no hope of ever seeing each other in the later life. I do not know about that life but in this life I miss my sister terribly. My heart was crushed, I wanted to hold my sis one more time but she was in that casket. I could not believe she was really gone. I had laughed with her on many occasions, I had wept with her numerous times, she gave me advice abundantly, she was the shoulder I leaned on especially since coming to the States.

We shared a lot of heartaches together, we shared the joys together, we were on this journey together. I feel as though she abandoned me because she left me without saying all I ever wanted to hear. I am grieving everyday, every night, I cannot accept she is gone. I close my eyes I see her and I want to reach out and touch her but she is not there. I love you sisi! I miss you everyday, I hope you find joy in that world that passes the joy you had in this world. May you please rest in peace, till we meet again. I will always love you my one and only Sisi Tracy.