My darling Somi,

I Still Cry. Sometimes, it’s a crash of colliding waves that makes it hard to breathe or move and other times, the tears trickle ever so lightly and unintrusively, but I Still Cry. I am crying now.

I cry for you, who had to leave so early and has missed out on so much living. For your life. For your death. For the person you were and the person you never got to be.  I cry for me, who lost my sister and has learned the very hard way that no, time does not heal all wounds. There are forever unfillable gaps. We have expanded. 2 weddings and 6 lives have been added to the gaping space between your here and your not here. I cry for the people you never got to love. 

Language is leaving me for ways to explain that you are missing from me, as a friend and a sister. After so many years of holding my breath so my insides don’t spill over from the weight of a universe that doesn’t carry you inside of it, I have learnt to breathe in half-measured, spaced-out breaths. To live in a somewhat constant state of dissociation, allowing myself to remember without sinking, because really, what does it truly mean to sit permanently inside the unmeasurable final stain of sadness that death leaves behind? So I live, and I love, and I try to thrive, but through it all, I Carry You.

I carry you with me in all the months that make up a year. I start January sad because it is the last month I saw and hugged you; I start February devastated because it is the month that took you, and I start March afraid because it marked the beginning of life post-Somi. April-May finds me confused because here we go again. In June, I am inconsolable because it is your she-would-be-this-age month. July-August-September-October carry sad because the clock keeps ticking, and the seasons keep changing without you. November hurts because it is my I-am-a-new-age, and you are not here to bear witness to my life. I end December even sadder because we are all together, and you are nowhere to be found. Then, a new year starts, and here we go again. 

It has been 12 years since I have heard your voice, held your hands and watched you belly laugh. A lot of life has not made sense in the time. I might not know much about much, but I do know with certainty that 12 years is a long time to be without you. It has been 12 years of “she’s-in-a-better-place-and-she-would-want-you-to-be-strong”, but I wanted you to be here, with me and not in a better place.    

I am married now. Can you believe that? I am writing this sitting next to my husband, who never met you but says he loves you because I love you. He holds my hand when I’m Somi-Sad and sits inside the you-shaped sadness with me. You would approve of him.

A lot of the world as you knew it has changed; and sometimes, I imagine the ways you might have changed with it. You are happy, loved, and close to me in all variations of my imagination. We talked about who we would become when we grew up. I am now grown, and it hurts that you’re not here.

Nwanne m Nwanyị, Kedu? Ebee ka ị nọ? Enwere ọṅụ n’ebe ahụ? Is there an Eden that finds you light and bare, swaying to hymns and eating fruits? Do you like it? If there is, I imagine you find it corny. I write to you, and I talk to you. I carry you with me, ink to skin; it makes me feel close to you. 

I have one-sided questions

M ka na-ebe akwa maka na ị ka na-efu m