The Women Who Raised Me

The Women Who Raised Me

“We was born to mothers who couldn't deal with us

Left by fathers who wouldn't build with us”

 

 

I’m the son of loud and proud Xhosa women who are present

I’m the son of a loud and obnoxious father who is absent

I was raised by women who built me up

And men who wouldn’t build with me

My grandmother, Ouma Sag, is warmth and chaos,

A rough and tough Kallit woman

Who married into the Xhosa culture,

‘La gogo we Lawu’

She taught me Afrikaans and gave me my love of tea

She is afraid of the government and white people

Considering her history,

Rightly so

My mother is noise and structure

She likes things being in their place

She’s the hardest working person I know

Life hasn’t been kind to her,

In response, she’s one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet

She’s a bit of a busybody, though

She likes getting involved in everyone’s business,

In a good-natured, well-meaning way

My aunt, my Mam’ncane, is quiet and chaos

She doesn’t like people much

And minds her business

She’s fiercely intelligent

Her focus and determination inspire me to keep pushing myself further

My sister is cheek and chaos

She’s all attitude, that one

Always ready to put people in their place

She’s crazy and fierce

Her fire burns hot and bright

I hope that she sets the world on fire

With her excellence one day

I am all of these characteristics,

With a generous serving of anxiety on the side

But all the good qualities I do have,

I get from these wonderful women

Who raised me

Occasional Letters to Death #4

Visiting the Departed

Death is before me today:

Like the recovery of a sick man,

Like going forth into a garden after sickness.

Death is before me today:

Like the odor of myrrh,

Like sitting under a sail in a good wind.

Death is before me today:

Like the course of a stream,

Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

Death is before me today:

Like the home that a man longs to see,

After years spent as a captive.

Neil Gaiman, Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)

 

Dear Death,

I spoke to four dead men today,

Their graves next to each other in my grandmother’s garden

I loved them all to varying degrees in Life

I love them to even more varying degrees in Death

The first man I spoke to was my grandfather

The degree to which I loved and love him is small,

As small as his mindedness was

But I was glad to swing by and say hello

The second man was sort of an adopted grandfather, I guess

He hung out at my grandmother’s house a lot

We all just went along with it

We all went along till he just became part of the family

I loved him in a pleasant sort of way

I still do

He told utterly fantastic stories that you could tell he utterly believed

He had an old-man smell that I liked

The third man I spoke to was my uncle, my Malume,

My mother’s older brother

He gave me some of his OCD

When I shine shoes or iron shirts, I think of him

I loved him

Even though he always shouted at me

I miss him and I am mad at him

He died in such a stupid way

Tuberculosis!

Treatable

He just had to take his pills

The last man I spoke to was my Malume too,

My mother’s middle brother

I loved him very much

He didn’t deserve it

He was trouble wearing a charming smile

We were all at peace the day he died too young

In Death, we all love him more than we did in Life