GRIEF. (Happy New Year)
There is a sound that human beings are capable of producing, it’s a sound with a unique fingerprint, a particular pitch and frequency that is directly and only synonymous with death. It’s this raw, guttural, pained wail of some sort.
Sometimes, it sounds almost like laughter, a strange, agonized kind of twisted laughter that comes from the deepest, darkest depths of the soul; where grief resides.
Once it hits you, your heart sinks instantly, your brain struggles to process the information your ears just fed it, and so your mind leaps straight into denial. Desperately trying to form a rational, logical explanation for what is happening. However, your spirit knows that something is desperately wrong and someone you know may have just left our plane of existence.
***
New years Eve (2023) : I watch fireworks on the expressway with my friends (and half of Nairobi.) The explosive blasts rattle my ear drums and the colourful brilliance of the pyrotechnics engulf the sky from various directions as we usher in a new year. With that, a fresher, deeper sense of purpose fuels my spirit. My heart is filled with an overwhelming sense of love, gratitude and kindness.
Feelings which I share generously with the people I love. I can’t believe that I made it another 365, God is so good, I am so blessed, I can’t wait to make the most of this year. I am ready.
As I listen to the sound of fireworks in the night sky, cars driving past, and the endless chatter and cheers from the thousands of Nairobians (it feels like) surrounding me. I have no idea that in 6 days I’ll be hearing the sound I described at the beginning of this story.
***
The News
I wake up on Saturday 6th January like it’s any regular old Saturday, my baby brother watches SuperSport in the sitting room; I can discern faint British voices emanating from the television. My mum sits in her bed, probably watching Salem or Njoro wa Uba.
And I sit in bed, slogging away at the 99+ Tiktoks my girlfriend sent me. When suddenly, mum answers a call, “What is it? What is it Beatrice?” She says frantically, the panic in her voice is palpable.
From her distressing tone, I sense immediately that something is up with my friend as mum is desperately trying to calm my aunty down.
I ignore this (denial). Turn the volume louder and keep watching my Tiktoks. A few minutes later, my brother barges into my room attempting to give me the 4-1-1 on the disturbing phone call he just overheard. I shut him down instantly, rather harshly if I’m honest.
“I don’t want to know! stop coming to my room to gossip with me about things you don’t understand” and he sulks out of my room.
Soon after, I walk into mum’s room so she can explain what’s going on. “Your Aunty just called me, your friend left a suicide note and now she can’t be found”. I go still internally. my heart sinks. Outwardly though, I try to project a rational, level-headed calm, my mum and I put on our thinking caps and start to voice out possible scenarios.
Our best case – which I now see as a desperate attempt for us to continue denying the contents of a letter that was written in a very meticulous, deliberate, and heart wrenching manner – is that it’s a last ditch, desperate cry for help.
We knew that my friend had struggled with her mental health for a long time, and that her current life situation was becoming increasingly isolating and difficult for her to cope with. But we had just spent Christmas together and she spent 4 days in our home, sleeping right there on our day-bed in the sitting room. She was a young, brilliant and already so accomplished young lady at 20 years old, yes things were tough at the moment, but she had so much life ahead of her.
After several minutes of anxiety, speculation and desperate hope that we were right…
I hear the sound. It comes from my mother’s bathroom, that painful, guttural wail that can only mean one thing. My mother’s cries echo throughout the house, the estate; instantly breaking the mental wall of denial that I had built. Proving it to be more fragile and delicate than a porcelain Chinese tea set, my mind could no longer keep up the weak illusion and I had to stand fully in the harsh light of the truth:
My friend ended her own life.
The confirmation is shocking. I numbly walk into mum’s room and sit on the edge of her bed. Silent. She continues to wail and cry in Kikuyu, my city boy ears unable to decipher exactly what she’s saying. I raise my hands to my head, and shake it slowly in disbelief.
A sucker punch to the heart, a shot to the body and stain on the soul. All the pain, anger and anguish that my friend had experienced in her life is here with us.
But she isn’t.
My gaze is fixed to the floor, as if hoping that she’ll pop out from beneath the tile and show this to be some twisted, elaborate ruse. To my right, I notice my baby brother, he’s 7. The young man seems confused, he has an odd, innocent smile on his face, the house has erupted suddenly like an active volcano of grief and pain. He has no idea what to do.
Only later, do I realize what is happening.
He’s looking at me and imitating my every move, sitting on his bed, burying his head in his hands. Exactly like his big brother is doing.
Some time later when there is a slight lull in the storm of grief blowing past our home, I decide that I need some fresh air. The house feels claustrophobic. I’m suffocating in sadness. So I step out to walk a few laps around the estate, maybe clear my mind somewhat. Guess who follows suit with the exact same reason? And in that moment, amidst the chaos ensuing, I realize the gravity of my responsibility to this boy. He really looks up to me.
My heart breaks even further when I think about my brother’s innocence. Juxtaposed with the violent emotional intensity of that fateful morning. The image of him imitating me will forever be etched in my memory.
I can’t believe she took her own life.
The Haze
The following days are a foggy blur of sadness, anguish and grief. I lose myself somewhere in a haze of laying in bed, weeping, re-watching Succession and poor dental hygiene. I am completely and utterly zombified, I feel like a shell of the man I was on NYE.
Somewhere in this haze, I think to myself “I have to snap out of it eventually, I know I do, but how do I move on?” My voice is a distant echo in the depressing jungle my mind has become.
I continue to wander about the jungle aimlessly. Sluggishly wading through swamps filled with thoughts about the time we spent together on Christmas, and the subsequent days. I recall her asking how I dealt with isolation when I lived in Nanyuki, far from my friends and I note the spiritual, philosophical conversation that followed.
I think about the letter.
One of the things that strike me about it is the certainty with which she wrote. She began by apologizing for the trauma her actions will cause. The word “will” immediately jumped out of the page for me; such a powerful word it is. She expressed herself with the clear minded conviction of someone who was ready to go.
And that’s who I knew her to be, a very intelligent, measured, almost cerebral person. You could almost feel the intelligence oozing out of every carefully structured sentence she put together, every word she uttered. But her supreme intellect didn’t hamper her empathy. As you could tell that she was someone who cared deeply about other people.
She was someone with an eye for great art, a sincere appreciation and understanding of good cinema and she had an eclectic, nuanced ear for good music. It was only after she self-transitioned that I realized she had shared with me over 12+ hours of music. Playlists I listened to but hadn’t noted their size until she left. One of the playlists she sent me is aptly named “a playlist that I listen to instead of going to therapy”.
I recognize that since she and I met, every interaction was laced with meaning, and our conversations were fused with a mutual understanding of the battle we silently wage against our own minds. A battle for peace, a battle which my dear friend could wage no longer.
Acceptance/ Gratitude
After her cremation, I don’t journal for 6 days. I continue wandering the harsh jungle. Lost like a rudderless boat, moving whatever direction the winds of grief blow.
***
There is a moment in time, during a deep meditation where you enter a profoundly deep state of relaxation, mental calm and absolute stillness. Your thoughts are a remote reverberation in the vast spaciousness of your infinite consciousness.
You are silence. It is you.
Peace inundates you and you know that you are experiencing God, right here, right now.
I pray that this is the peace that my friend is experiencing now.
I am grateful I got to experience her uniquely wonderful spirit while she was still here.
- Imran Jomo