Dear Mama,
I helped you to the couch, you laid your head on my lap and I tried to position your head in a few positions to see if I could help you breathe better. When it didn’t seem to work, I coddled your head and sat still. They gave me a warm cloth, I put it on your forehead and I wiped around your face. I stared at you; you were sweating, breathing heavy and starting to get cold. Then I heard it: your breathing pattern slowed down and I heard a really slow staccato breathing sound coming from your mouth. After you exhaled those last breaths of air, I watched your eyes still, your face lose its color and your body go limp. I put my ear to your mouth and I heard a soft and raspy flow of air come out but you didn’t inhale again. I looked up at them and said, “She stopped breathing.” They ran to call the ambulance and I sat there: coddling your head and staring at you.
I remember the EMTs coming and taking you from my arms. They laid you down on the floor and started working on you. We stood back watching and waiting for you to respond. They hovered over you for a few minutes, and then we heard you start to breath. They said that they put a tube in your mouth to help you breath and that they needed to take you to the hospital. We got in a car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. When we walked into the ER waiting area, they directed us to come into a smaller room to sit down. They said a few sentences that basically meant that you stopped breathing and they couldn’t bring you back. You died.
The dialogue couldn’t have lasted more than a minute but it felt like they were talking for hours and it still didn’t hit me. It didn’t register until I looked over at Ronald’s facial expression. His face confirmed what I hoped I didn’t hear. You died. When Chris got there, they told him. We just stared at each other; his facial expression mirrored what I felt. It was the most painful look I’ve ever seen on his face. They asked if we wanted to go back and see your body. They said you’d be hooked up to a lot of tubes and IVs and that we should be prepared to see that. Chris went back there to see you. I wouldn’t go. I couldn’t do it. I don’t know if I couldn’t move or if I was in too much shock or just too scared to walk back there and see you. I just know that I couldn’t go; I couldn’t see you like that. I watched you take your last breaths, but I couldn’t see you breathless/lifeless/dead in a room with tubes & IVs.
When I got back home, I walked through the door, saw the look on granny’s face and it took me over the edge. It was real, you died. We sat in the room crying, nonstop. There were no words, just tears.
My memory can blur the details of what was exactly said, the time intervals of what all happened and who all came to the hospital or the house that night. But I never seem to forget the moment you took those last breaths or the still/colorless look on your face afterwards. Those memories have been reserved for me. Nobody else was close enough to see the look on your face or hear those final breaths. Those were the most intense, emotional and scary moments of my life. Talk about surreal. When/if I daydream or think about those moments, I have to shake out of it. Each time the images & thoughts scare me and my eyes water within seconds. It never feels like it really happened. Something as dramatic as your mother taking her final breaths while you hold her and stare into her eyes never seems real. But I know it was; I know that it all happened. I was there for the whole thing. Mike missed it all, Chris got to the hospital afterwards and saw your dead body, Nekabari & Nuka were at the house to see things from their viewpoints until they put you in the ambulance. But lucky me, I got to live the entire ordeal that night and take away the memories so I can relive it often.
I got to be with you in your final hour but I never feel lucky about any of it, mama. I feel hurt, I feel sick and I feel pain; no lucky or good feelings at all. It’s a heavy burden; it’s an ugly scar. I didn’t sleep the night you died. I kept replaying the final breaths and image on your face in my head. I keep those details from that night with me til this day. No memory evokes the kind of emotion that it does. The tears I cried that night: acid tears, tears that burned my eyes and felt like they burnt my skin off my cheeks; those tears are reserved for you. They’re the same tears I cried at your funeral; the same tears I’ve cried on your birthday, every Mother’s Day and every November 26 since 2006. I’m a helpless and weak version of myself on those days; they’re the hardest days of my year. It pains me to my core to write this letter, but I had to. I had to try writing it down this year; anything to supplement the emotional strain of the reflection or pain of today.
I was video chatting with the family on Thanksgiving Day. They said I look a lot like you with my locs, but I claim to not see it. Not because I don’t want to see you in myself, but because I miss you so damn much. As much as I love looking at myself and all my moments of vanity, seeing pieces of you in my visual appearance is bittersweet. Seeing your smile, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your hair or your style in my reflection is the best and worst feeling. I inherited some of your looks and a lot of your characteristics. Seeing you in me reminds me of that and it’s comforting; but it also never lets me live down your death. You live in my heart and mind but you don’t live in the physical realm. You died that night and that reality hurts like hell. It’s not fair. And if it makes me selfish to need and want you here, so be it. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it and maybe I’m not supposed to…
Just know that you’re the greatest person I’ll ever know and I love & miss you eternally. I hope you’re resting well mama.
~Sincerely,
your only daughter: Teni-Ola Adunni Ogunjobi (Tanny)
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