Before I go

Abstract

I am ready to die.
I closed my bank accounts and cancelled my insurance.
I selected a photograph of myself from my other life for the funeral programme.
I was young and virile then.

I rummaged through the random things I collected for years that served no apparent purpose.
I discovered a silver pen that was given to me as a long service award,
three flashlights and a mitt to clean my Italian leather shoes.

I laughed with my cousin on the veranda as we sipped sorrel
and gazed out at Kingston’s verdant hillside
adorned with red Poinciana blooms and garlands of yellow mangoes.

I want to be buried next to my uncle in the cemetery downtown.
The family plot behind the Baptist church in the rural village
where I grew up is no resting place.

How the memories of walking eight miles to and from school,
feeding the hogs, tying out the donkey and
being whipped for drinking an entire tin of condensed milk still haunt me.
I am sure to meet only slave ancestors in the afterlife if I return there.

I hugged my grandsons and reminded them to take care of each other.
Despite being petrified of my dentures and horrified that I ceased to wear them,
they allowed me to tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight.

In my last conversation with my daughter,
I sat quietly and listened to her judgement of my shortcomings as a father.
This unexpected confession of resentment took decades
to pick its way through her clenched teeth that chewed lies as she smiled.

She was right.
You can only give what you have inside,
nothing more.
Had I given so little that no one would remember me?
When I kissed my wife goodbye and handed her the photograph,
I was overcome with desire to be desired
by the one person to whom I was already dead.

There was too much neglect,
too many women, and children with other women,
for my “I love you” peace offering to fit in her emaciated bitter heart.
Somehow she flourished despite her refusal to acknowledge that I gave her
status.

At the door,
I turned away and stumbled
into the unknown, chastened and repentant.