I have to leave.

The one thing that tied me to home was Maama. I had always felt a sense of obligation to go back home wherever I was. I felt that Maama needed me. It’s not that Maama was not self-sufficient and independant. Not at all. It lies more in the way she always asked me ‘kon irakun dhen annaanee?’ and ‘las nuve avahah annahchey?’ every time I left the house. Perhaps it gave her a  sense of relief knowing that I was home. Every time there was a murder in town, a political protest or the likes of such a thing she would urge me to stay home and not to go out. She was perpetually worried for my well being. Perhaps, this is the reason why I started feeling a sense of vulnerability immediately after her passing; because my protector was no more.

On day 3 of her admission, I got a call letting me know that my placement was assured. This meant that I had to leave home and Maama for 1 year. I remember going through the course of events in my head and thinking why things happen the way they do. There she was lying on her hospital bed in the ward struggling to breathe … and now this? The dilemma was cruel even. Not just to me, but for Maama too. Recalling the choices I’ve made before, I made up my mind not to leave until Maama left the hospital. That was early November of 2015.

Come December and Maama was in a coma for 30 days on-end. She stopped opening her eyes, stopped trying to pull out the endotracheal tube and stopped grasping my hand even. No one was sure of what was happening and even the doctors were left with ‘leaving it to God’. ‘Perhaps she would bounce back, perhaps not’, they said. Time was definitely not on my side. In my inability to decide whether I should stay or leave, I thought of what Maama would tell me to do. And so I told her.

On the 17th of December 2015, I told Maama that I was faced with a dilemma and that I needed to leave but that I wanted to stay with her. I asked her to help me decide on what to do. I told her how I thought I’d apply for visa that Sunday (20th December 2015) not knowing whether that was the right thing to do. I asked her to decide for me because she always knew what to do. Although she wasn’t able to respond to me, I was somehow confidant that she could hear me. And Maama being Maama, she always helped me get through even the most trying of times.

And she decided for me. Just like that.

The morning of day I was supposed to apply for my visa, she left. After weeks and days of not budging to even the best treatment and then being on palliation she decided to leave. Just like that. After I got a chance to regain my composure and gather my thoughts to some extent, I realised how, even in death, Maama was the wisest person I’ve ever known. She knew how intently I loved her, and perhaps she also knew that if I had to leave while she was still in the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something were to happen to her.

And so she untied me from that guilt. I was no longer bound by an obligation to be home.