…”[B]ut hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently”

What does it feel like to be kicked when you’re down?

It feels like the end.

I had made myself smaller than I had ever been and still, I was not small enough. I looked around me and found nobody but the young people we had created. Where I had put my deepest reliance, the desertion was strongest. Then, one by one, the rest began to leave. 

The wind was strong with whispers, and there were those who came to witness it, those who wanted to make certain of it and those who carried it like a final damnation as far and wide as their tongues could reach to whomever cared to listen. It was sweet and comforting to them I suppose, yet offering no lasting satisfaction. Regardless, my command remained the same; wait.

Voices they once knew and loved never came up anymore. They heard them drive in and then as they started dancing with glee and careless excitement, they were gone again, almost as soon as they entered. Tears from a confused little heart. I trembled. Now chastised as intruders, they received only offerings of confirmation of a perceived destitution.

The new shoes I just bought. I can’t find my black shoes. The toys that were just here. Questions as loud as conversations unheard.

I jeered at the bed which had become a place of torment- my torture chamber, I called it. It was filled with grotesque dreams, of people I once knew, of things even the inverse world of a dream could not explain.

So I fought back, and my nights became like the sound of violent rain and thunder, like hundreds of people quarrelling with their God in strange utterances. One night I stood up, boldly as I do, when I have no other choice, and walked into the shadows shouting the only name I knew to shout.

The children did not wake up. Except, a few times as I trekked the ghastly streets of my subconscious, on the verge of something sinister, the cry of the younger one broke through the night, just in time, as if he knew to cry in that moment.

I had wondered what I would do, now that I had stripped away one part of my identity. Then I realised that, that part had been lost for a very long time.

I slept whenever I could. First, in the searing heat and humidity of the first five months, in the house alone with a stranger in my kitchen, in the afternoon during school holidays; but sometimes, even in the day, my body awake but unable to move, I was once again completely accessible to whatever it was that was seeking me, or so it seemed.

I love you but I can’t do this anymore. I’m all alone. I’m scared. I’m tired.

Hang in there.

For what. What am I waiting for?

The bird upon the window pane, as naturally as one picking its feed, flew away with the message it had heard and the wheels were oiled and kept turning.

It was 29th May, the first day back to school.  I was reeling from what the diagnosis said was a deficit of iron. I played a song of triumph and it led me to another and another. Finally I found, a group of people singing, dancing and rejoicing with a trumpet, drums and shakers, and their joy and assurance compelled me. They called it the Hallelujah Challenge. So I joined them every night and I slept until it was time to drive to school again. I didn’t mind.

Everyday that ended, brought up the pain and anger that had been pressed down into the depths of me. Then the challenge ended and it was as if all hell had broken loose. I was in and out of hospital with the children, rushing through the streets at the a.m. times when wild dogs get knocked. Then it came for me too and I fell.

Help came from the dry brooks, in places where I no longer expected it; and this time it was constant when I was certain it would wane. On the second night with the pipe in my veins taking antibiotics to my body, I sat up and spoke. My voice was crisp and clear. The connection was unfettered.

And just like that, it was time to go. We travelled with the honour and grandeur of those esteemed, beloved and wanted.

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You said that You would never leave me nor forsake me.

*

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified … for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”