MEMORIES SO TO SPEAK
Sometimes I wish that death had a bell on its neck, that way we would know it’s coming. I wasn’t prepared for his death, I didn’t see it coming but somehow I felt it. I lost two brothers in the space of 3 months. After that, I lost my faith; I didn’t want to think about God. I gave up on almost everything; there was no sense in anything anymore.
Two weeks before my first brother died, I visited him at his home. I was with my other cousins who I often refer to as my sisters, and I do have a sister. The ‘girls’ had gotten together to visit the ‘boys’. (My other brother lived about 2 minutes’ walk from the first brother.) While we were at his when I decided to take pictures of my niece, one of his daughters, he was blessed with two. (I am the undesignated family photographer. If there’s family around, you’ll see me with my phone busy taking pictures.) My niece wouldn’t cooperate. No enticement we used would make her pose for a picture! Finally my bro decided to carry her and have me take the photo then. We took several of the two of them together. Normally when I’m alone and playing with my phone, I will end up deleting the photos I took during the day. I never even gave a thought to those photos. After my brother died, my family couldn’t find any recent photo of him. (Both my brothers just hated posing for photos. They would take pictures of others, but not of themselves.) It turns out the pictures I had on my phone, were the only ones available. Talk about amazing! At least we have pictures to remember him by.
During the burial of my brother, as usual I ended up with the camera. For some insane reason I kept taking pictures of my other brother. If he was far from me, I would zoom in. I tried to follow him wherever he went without letting him notice. Two months later when he died, they were the most recent pictures that we had of him.
Sometimes, when I miss them the most, I look at the photos. I’m not sure what pushed me to take them, but at least somehow, they are still here with us. I always get mad when I think of how fast they both left us, then I look at my beautiful nieces and nephew, and I thank God that pieces of them were left behind for us to have close by.
J.
