“Chi negbu madu ubosi ndu ya nato ya uto daluo!”
— Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
On her deathbed, she smiled faintly at my wet eyes: What’s the problem, big boy?
(A jar with a dozen bright red roses on the table by her bed was the only sign of life in her room, among syringes and medications. Bring me roses, many roses! — she ordered, when I told her that I was on my way to the hospital).
It’s me who is dying. Why is it you the one crying?
The ascites had made her belly round as if she were pregnant, but there was no life coming to her, only death. Certain and fast coming death.
Tears began rolling down my face.
Oh, don’t cry. It’s God’s will. We just have to conform to it. Come on, big boy! It’s me who is parting. You have a full and exciting life before you. Come on, stop crying.
I turned my eyes to the flowers — it was too hard to look at her pale, emaciated face — while babbling something about how absurd it was that a beautiful girl like her was being consumed by such a devastating disease; how unjust it was for God to claim the life of a good girl, loved by everyone, in her twenties; how hard it would be to cope with her loss. I even thought about telling her it was not “God’s will” but cancer — but I was not sure of that.
She kidded me: Don’t be so selfish! You are crying for your own pain, not mine. I will be fine in two or three days. You also will be fine in some months. Life goes on, you know. Two years from now, I will be just a memory.
I protested, trying to hold back my tears.
Bullshit! She said, in her weak voice, and that was the last word I heard from her. Late that night, God’s will picked that beautiful rose in the sweetest days of her life.
