Goodnight Grams

They say I look like her,

But it is just skin deep,

We share a name, Wanjiru.

Maybe not just skin deep,

Her son is my dad,

Definitely not just skin deep,

Now she is gone….

A brown smiling wrinkled face is what I have known all my life

The way she always said my name with a smile every time we met,

A strong hand-grip yet so fragile,

Then we would sit down and have an odd conversation

She would ask the questions in Kikuyu

And I will answer them in Swahili

Now she is gone…

We didn’t see each other quite often,

But I felt good every time we did,

When I was a young girl,

I would sit next to her intrigued as I listened to the tales of geshagi,

Now she is gone…

Now she is gone and I don’t know what to feel,

It is 1 am

I sit on my bed too deep in my feelings,

The crooked smile,

The silky scarf that always covered her silver hair,

The slightly bent walk,

The scattered Swahili words,

I already miss her,

Or maybe I miss the feeling of missing her,

I still don’t know what to feel

Maybe I am scared of facing my feelings,

Maybe there just isn’t nothing to feel

Maybe I’m just numb,

Now she is gone…

She was already old,

Why did cancer have to make it harder for her?

Why did her last days have to be so painful?

Why does it hurt this much?

Why the cocktail of emotions?

Now she is gone…

Nothing makes anything final like death

Goodnight Grams…