This is day 5 since Maama passed. I am still unable to grasp this reality .. this new normal .. and assimilate the fact that she is indeed really gone. It all feels too unreal. It feels like I am going to wake-up, in a sweat, and laugh off this dream of a world where Maama is no more. It feels like a strange realm. A nightmare. Even a bit like Sleep Paralysis where you lay helpless and wonder when you’ll regain the strength to move, to utter a word and to escape. The auditory hallucinations are no help, either. The inflections, the accentuations. It’s as though she is still in her room, next to Kaafa, putting him in his place whenever he starts complaining about the sound of drilling upstairs, the rice not being well done or the tea not being hot enough. The sound of her Oxygen Concentrator, her external lung, inhaling and exhaling still lingers, like a scent or a fragrance of a person who hasn’t been gone long.

I am not going to wake up, am I?