What We Lose(24)

“Must’ve been walking on the highway,” my father said, clucking solemnly.

“Shame,” my mother whimpered in return.

I couldn’t speak; I could only shudder. My stomach turned, but I could not look away. I craned my neck all the way around as we crawled past the scene, until I could no longer see the man through the back windshield. Traffic picked up and we turned off the highway, up the hill, and into the driveway of our vacation home. The man was still on my mind, but he was fading. I still felt a small tinge of horror, I felt a bit less safe. I felt sad for him, for any family he might have had. But there was not much time to think of him as we unloaded our dishes and bags and gifts from the car. I had to carry all my things, including the precarious curry dish, in one hand.

My other arm I offered to my mother, and she leaned heavily on it up the stone walkway to our front door. She was shaky and tired from the long day. It took us many minutes, and many times I was afraid I would drop something or that she would fall, but eventually, we reached the front door, and we all went to sleep peacefully that night, grateful for the life that we still had.



She’s gone.

But she’s here, I can feel her. I can see her that day they told us that everything was going to be all right.

But she’s not here.

But I can feel her arms around me. It feels like the breeze coming off the river. It enwraps me with its warmth. It comforts me. It smells like her breath.

But she’s long gone.

But maybe I can be happy with something else. If I feel happy and shut my eyes, maybe it will be the same.

But it will never be the same.





PART THREE





When Peter is gone, my body enters a period of slow motion from which I cannot emerge. Everything moves underwater. My body feels already extremely pregnant, as does my mind. There is little difference between week two and week eight.



Our heroes tend to be orphans. Beowulf, Batman, even Harry Potter. There are plenty of plausible explanations. Perhaps they all began as spectacular individuals, and not having parents afforded them more room to define their identity in a spectacular way? Or does the loss of parents endow them with a drive to do greater things? Do they just have more to prove? Or do we simply view the loss of parents as the most tragic of situations, so that a person who overcomes such a circumstance is necessarily imbued with some aspect of heroism?

Arguably South Africa’s greatest hero, Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography of feeling “cut adrift” after his father’s death. It was the experience that led him to leave his childhood home, thus signaling a literal and figurative departure from childhood:

Late that night he called for Nodayimani, “Bring me my tobacco,” he told her. My mother and Nodayimani conferred and decided that it was unwise that he have tobacco in his current state. But he persisted in calling for it, and eventually Nodayimani filled his pipe, lit it, and then handed it to him. My father smoked and became calm. He continued smoking for perhaps an hour, and then, his pipe still lit, he died.

I do not remember experiencing great grief so much as feeling cut adrift. Although my mother was the center of my existence, I defined myself through my father. My father’s passing changed my whole life in a way that I did not suspect at the time. After a brief period of mourning, my mother informed me that I would be leaving Qunu. I did not ask her why, or where I was going.

I packed the few things that I possessed, and early one morning we set out on a journey westward to my new residence. I mourned less for my father than for the world I was leaving behind. Qunu was all that I knew, and I loved it in the unconditional way that a child loves his first home. Before we disappeared behind the hills, I turned and looked for what I imagined was the last time at my village. I could see the simple huts and the people going about their chores; the stream where I had splashed and played with the other boys; the maize fields and green pastures where the herds and flocks were lazily grazing. I imagined my friends out hunting for small birds, drinking the sweet milk from the cow’s udder, cavorting in the pond at the end of the stream. Above all else, my eyes rested on the three simple huts where I had enjoyed my mother’s love and protection. It was these three huts that I associated with all my happiness, with life itself, and I rued the fact that I had not kissed each of them before I left. I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way with the past that I was leaving behind.



The cliché that is uttered by survivors of the dead, especially children who have lost beloved parents, is that the child or survivor wants to make them proud. I’m doing this for Dad, they will say and point to the sky, while ascending a mountain or giving a virtuoso performance to an adulatory crowd. And there is always the single tear, reminding us of both the pain and the glory of success, both perfectly present in that single, clean display of emotion. This is how it is supposed to work, to remind us that the universe is perfectly in balance, and those who suffer will be rewarded with triumph.

This thought was foremost in my mind when watching Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in 2008. The Obama family—so sharply dressed in black and bright red, which contrasted with their glowing brown skin—looked literally new, with their fresh hairstyles and vibrant clothing. They were also something we Americans had never seen before. They—a young, handsome black family, installed as our nation’s figureheads, buoyed by the support of millions—were new to us, as a nation.