“And, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.” -William Shakespeare

Happy Birthday my baby
Ibiso ‘Abu’
Nicknamed before one
For your childish selfishness
My lover of tea
And licker of limes
Baby sister, word mispronouncer
gurgling giggler
I’d love to miss you less.

On Saturday, my fourth sister, Ibiso, would have turned twenty one. We lost her at thirteen, to Nigeria’s inefficiency, callousness and corruption; she died in a plane crash, on her way home for the Christmas holidays from boarding school.

No one really gets over the death of a loved one. The chasm death introduces to separate the two of you is too wide to be breached by time’s gentle balm or life’s vicissitudes. It just isn’t enough. And so daily, you learn to build defences around your heart in a valiant effort to dull the pain. You climb the stories of your soul and board up windows of memories, spaces for thought to stream in light as light, you shut up the rays of her sun, her face, her smile, that gurgling laughter, those silly remarks only an entitled teen might make, you cover her shared dreams with your lids, holding hot tears between tonsil and throat.

All the time, your heart breaks.

But you must live, for yourself…and for everyone else; one more hurt would destroy the unit entirely. So you live, and live and live everyday praying to God the broken pieces of your heart don’t puncture a lung and let the tear-soaked blood roar out.

And so I build fortresses and castles, for if I let myself think on my loss…I may never stop. And then, I may never survive. But there is great danger in fearing to remember; I might forget.

I am terrified; afraid I might forget the exact tinkle of her laughter, the true oval of her face or almond of her eyes. What does her voice sound like? What would be her opinion on that Ciara or Jojo artist she loved, today? I don’t know. I don’t remember all of her; I get random snatches of memory sometimes tap dancing on the periphery of my mind, sometimes hot and heavy and hard and painful in my gut. Forgetting saddens me, and scares me too. If her essence leaves me as her body has, what would I have left? I’ve lost her, do I lose our memories too??

I remember grasping desperately to every memory, every tid bit, every discussion I could remember as soon as I knew she was gone, as though I knew she would try to flee soon and hanging on to her bits would keep her here with me a little longer. But the more desperately I grasped, the more ephemeral her presence and I eventually surrendered to the transience of life. Now, I only see my sister in my dreams; in those dreams the five sisters are complete, Ibiso sits with us in discussion yet never speaks with us in discussion. Perhaps in her muteness, reminding us of her presence even in the stillness. Strangely, in my dreams she is not fragmented; my subconscious seems able to conjure full images of tan skin, dark eyes, Kalabari nose, Monroe mole and the small full lips that my consciousness cannot.

The strength of the mind or the power of the soul?

I console myself with the fact that although I cannot fully remember my baby sister, her death has taught me invaluable lessons that I will always remember. I think a twenty one year old Ibiso might have liked that…been perhaps proud of her ability to school her older sister.

In losing her, I learnt to find the depth in my character, a reservoir of strength and capacity I would never have believed I had stored. I found deep, incredible, unquenchable love in our family’s bond even tighter than before, from the shared wealth of loss. Ibiso taught me true joy; how it funnily remains aloofly unattached to things, status or feelings. In many ways, losing Ibiso helped me find myself. I would rather still have her and remain lost but this is the hand that we have been dealt.

I join in rendering the anthem of The Resigned, “C’est la vie”.

https://suitsscandalandthegoodwife.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/new/