Her name was Julie.
She gave the warmest hugs, the biggest smiles and the heartiest laughter. She was beautiful, generous and kind. We lost her to COVID in August of 2021. I could not bear seeing her in a coffin lifeless; I never said goodbye. Julie was my cousin whom I dearly loved, and have since never deleted her contact from my phone. Am I denial? One might ask. Truth is I do not know, but I can certainly share what I feel.
Being a big sister figure in my life, she was literally by my family’s side even in the most painful and difficult moments of our lives. She encouraged me where I needed encouraging and rebuked me when I needed rebuking, especially in my foolish adolescent years. She woke me up to a lot life’s realities.
I did grow up, matured and came face to face with what they call ‘Busy Nairobi life’. What then followed was the dwindling of our frequent calling and visiting each other; we were now meeting only once in a while at family functions, or if we bumped into each other on the streets of the same Nairobi or on a good day, get a chance to visit her at her former place of work. She always gave me a treat whenever we met and looking back I truly hope that treats were not my motivation otherwise, that could easily pass for selfishness on my part. How sad, now that I think about it.
This is not the first time I am reminiscing over these things. I have done this every time I have found myself scrolling through my phone and bumping into her number. I keep asking myself if I ever did enough to make her know just what she meant to me. I then just skip the number for I can’t bear looking at it for a longtime, but won’t delete it either. This makes me wonder whether there is a certain guilt or responsibility I am feeling towards the late Julie.
Have you felt this way for a loved one you have lost? That you have been unable to delete their contacts? I say it is okay to feel this way, hoping that in no way are we taking this to mean that we are ignoring the reality that they are gone and never coming back. The guilt and responsibility that we feel may be as a result of so much . It is worth considering that perhaps, not cherishing moments we have with our loved ones or not creating enough moments with them can birth such feeling in the unfortunate case that they go before us. It could probably make a difference if we made those that we love know how we feel without holding back and not always wait for that perfect moment to do the thing we want to do for them, or say to them.
I thought so highly of my cousin, I was full of gratitude for who she was, not just to me but also to the larger family. Many times I had all these wonderful ideas of what I would do for her but guess what, they all remained in my head and heart. I was waiting for the perfect moment. Death had a different plan. This makes it quite emotional to think that I can just delete her number and move on. However, I am fully aware that I must get past it.
What is that thing we are thinking will happen if we hold onto the contacts of the ones we have already lost? Is it possible that we are thinking this can replace the feeling of loss and somehow seeing their names give us comfort? Or could it be that we feel guilt of what we could have done or not done for them and so just hold onto that number to feel less guilty? Finally, is it that their death became imposible to come to terms with that we are silently hoping to hear their voice from the otherside of the ring? Need for comfort,guilt and denial are what these things are. Are they in any way explaining why you are not deleting that number?
From my own experience, such feelings will come flooding and will overwhelm; but will keeping their contacts make any of these go away? I certainly do not think so. We must bravely face the situation at hand, which is probably the failure to protect our different relationships. Do we ever think about how we impact each other whenever we meet and part ways. Does the true state of our relationships matter to us in light of the inevitable death?
So rather than try to find out what we can do to make peace and come to terms with losing our loved ones in a neagtive way, we should act now when we still can; it is better to remedy ourselves of these aches while we live and before death happens.
Plainly put is that there is need for us to be more intentional about expressing our truest thoughts, kindness and compassion toward each other. Thought and energy must be expensed in all our existing relationships so that we are not left holding onto a name and number in a phone book; but rather hold onto memories deeply etched on our minds and hearts. For we will have written our stories on each other’s lives by what we did and said when they could hear us, see us, and vice versa.
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