Ten years ago today, my mom woke me up as she did every school morning at 5:00 a.m. Most days, she woke me up by pulling the blankets completely off me. Other days she would shout my name from across the house: “Tariro, muka unogeza!” (“Tariro, wake up and go bathe!”) or “Hausati wamuka nanhasi?!” (“You’re still not awake?!”) But on this particular morning, she woke me with the words:
“Tete Tendai vashaya.”
My Aunt Tendai had passed away.
I heard the words, and they registered in my mind, but somewhere between the grogginess of sleep and the sheer unexpectedness of what had just been said, I couldn’t form any real reaction. So I got ready for school as if nothing had happened.
We had Mass that day. Although my relationship with the Catholic Church was, by then, nearing its bitter end, I remember singing every hymn, dancing, and existing in a strange euphoric state that I couldn’t explain.
The next day, a Friday… still no tears.
On Saturday, we travelled to my childhood home in Chitungwiza.
The moment I walked through the front door, I saw her coffin resting in the living room, exactly where our black plasma TV used to be. The first person to embrace me was her twin sister tete Chipo.
That was the first time I truly broke down.
That day my mother practically dragged me to the body viewing. I remember hating the funeral talk. The man giving it had hardly known my aunt, so what right did he have to summarize her life? And if memory serves me correctly, he probably slipped in the usual clichés about God’s plan and going to heaven, things my Aunt Tendai herself did not believe.
Later, at the cemetery, as they lowered her coffin into the ground, another now-familiar stream of tears rolled down my face.
Some girl I had never met before came over and placed a hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me.
I did not appreciate having my grief interrupted.
On the drive back home, it rained. That was unusual for that time of year, so I took the rain as a sign from above.
Tete Tendai loved gardening. She always had plants, healthy ones at that! She loved birds and had the warmest, heartiest laugh. She was the most soft-spoken person I have ever known.
Above all, she loved Jehovah.
Whenever people ask me how I came into the truth, my story begins with her. She used to read the Bible to me before bed, and because of that, I grew up knowing so much. As much as I believe I have now made the truth my own, part of it will always belong to her, to the kind of person she was and the example she set for me.
When she died, I was eighteen.
One of my greatest regrets is that I never had the opportunity to know her as an adult. There are so many questions I wish I could ask her and so many experiences I wish we could have shared.
Whenever I visit a place that has a botanical garden, I make a point of going. She loved botanical gardens, and somehow I always feel an essence of her there while walking along the paths with the birds chirping overhead.
(Disclaimer: I do not believe dead people are alive somewhere watching us. This is simply how certain memories make me feel.)
One memory has stayed with me for years.
I was probably between five and eight years old, visiting Tete Chipo. We were deciding the sleeping arrangements because another guest was staying over: my Uncle Khulus’s sister. The plan was for the three of us: me, Tete Tendai, and my uncle’s sister to sleep together on the floor in the living room. I desperately wanted the middle spot. It seemed so cozy.
But Tete Tendai refused.
I pleaded my case more than once, but she wouldn’t budge. Instead, she took the middle spot herself. At the time, I thought she was being selfish.
Years later, after she had passed away, I remembered that night and suddenly realized something.
My uncle’s sister was known for dabbling in dark magic and witchcraft (yes, where I grew up, that was something people genuinely believed). It dawned on me that perhaps the real reason my aunt wouldn’t let me sleep in the middle wasn’t because she wanted the spot for herself but it was because she didn’t want that woman sleeping next to me and having easy access to me.
So she placed herself between us.
She became my shield.
The tears I cried when I finally understood that.
As painful as her death was… and still is, I have hope that I will see her again. Not in heaven, but right here on earth, just as the Bible promises.