Given the pain that I went through because of a flaw in my blood. Fear was gripping my core. I was living in denial and shock. Tears were the product of the upset muscle ,my heart. Hours of hardship due to a death of someone close to me. My heart is both hard and soft.

If given the chance to fly, I’d fly to the moon, maybe there it’s more calm. Here, my emotions were chasing me. Tears were my escape when no one seemed to care. Pain is careless, it is merciless. I have tried all sleeping pills, in what I thought would bring tranquillity to my soul but to no success.

When I woke up, the sun laughed and no one knew how my heart was melting. Everyday I borrowed the words of Winnie Mandela when she said: There is no longer anything that I can fear, there is nothing that pain has not done to me. There is nothing that death, that loss has not done to me. It plays its songs in my heart.

The week after I lost my brother, I was angry. I returned to school two days after the burial. I didn’t want to be at home any longer. I thought I would find remedies when I got to school.

I was a fool.

Is there a remedy to numb pain caused by death? Losing Ele was losing my limb, my right hand. I tried to attend my classes and I wrote a few tests. The results reflected so poorly that one day I received an email which read, “…we regret to inform you that your performance is very poor and we doubt you will make it this year. Please consider campus counselling if there is anything you need…’’

I observed the message and went for counselling. Counselling was perfect and I enjoyed the sessions but nothing sank in. It was not a permanent solace for my heart. My wound would not stop bleeding. I was constantly indoors, never wanting to leave. I lost the light to my path. Light hid at the top of the mountains. Rainfall was not reaching my valley. I met death in the alleys besides the shadow of my light. Time always burdened me as the moon took its stand.

But I am grateful. The day I received healing was the day my mother called me. She sounded very bold and that was what I was craving for. She began talking to me about our mortal bodies and a promise to life eternal. She told me to accept the cracks that I can never mend, to know the difference between day and night, to find the reason why it is dark in the night and bright in the morning. My mind was freed because my mother preached to my heart. “It’s either you accept that Elekanyani is gone or you are going to suffer from depression all your life. God is still God even when we fell into the crack,’’ she said to me.

My soul needed a cure and my mother delivered a surgery to my soul. This year came with torment that I will never forget. I almost failed in the beginning of the year, or dropped out of school. But here I am, standing with one limb, holding on to the promise that, ‘I will meet my right hand someday’.

The day I got healed was the day my eyes were tired of being misty. They whispered to me and said, “It is a soul that needs a surgery.’’ And that alone brought hope, that my brother is in a better place. I will sit down one day in the future when God blesses me with kids, I will narrate to them a story of healing and acceptance that my mother taught me.

The day we accept the things we cannot change in life, is the day we reach the highest level of freedom. There will be an hour in every human being’s life that betrayal and death will knock on their door. There is no miracle, nor magic, to replace the loss of life, apart from the promise of life after death. What matters is what we do after that hour has lapsed. Do we cry all our lives? Do we keep our dreams on hold? Do we turn to drugs to numb the aches?

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