They say you never understand death until it lays it's hands on someone you love.
Mum had just come back from a trip two weeks back, a successful business woman. She was hard working, strong, kind hearted and above all, Godfearing. She had a little fever few days back so she went to a pharmacy and got drugs.
It was on the 21st of January 2011, we had just come back from the shop. She ate and took the last of the pills she got from the pharmacy and went to sleep. I woke up to the sound of a teary voice, it was 1:23 A.M. I went straight to mum's room, she was on a call with her sister, she was shivering with tears in her eyes. I was just 11 so nothing made sense to me, I thought it was just a normal fever so I laid beside her and went back to sleep.
She called me up later at about 5AM, she was puking and bleeding profusely, I took her phone and called her sister who told me to call dad because he was closer to us than anyone else, by this time mum was saying things I couldn't decode. I called dad and at 7AM he arrived. He took mum to a nearby clinic where she was diagnosed with a very high blood pressure. She had been managing this since the birth of my little sister but how did she let it get this bad? She was given medications which she rapidly responded to.
Later that evening, her brothers who lived around came to the clinic, her health had slowly started to deteriorate so they took her to a better hospital, it was "Zankili" hospital. This time it had gone from bad to very bad. She couldn't bring herself to rest all through the night, the next morning which was on a sunday, she had a stroke. It was nothing to hide, my own mother was in so much pain, I watched her almost give up, the countless times her eyes rolled in but she was a fighter, she still fought to stay alive.
The doctor asked that she be transfered to another hospital as her condition was now very critical, she was transfered to "National hospital" she was taken to the ICU ( intensive care unit), at this point she had lost consciousness. I couldn't tell what happened next as I was taken home to get some sleep and eat too, I was too young to watch this my dad said.
At around 7PM that same day I was overtaken by fear, I wanted to see my mother, I cried and begged to be taken back to the hospital, my uncle agreed and at 9PM we were there, my mum was breathing with the help of an external oxygen. I couldn't stand this, I could remember saying "God please heal my mother". Did my prayers go unanswered? Yes it was. At exactly 9:30PM she took her one last breath, that was the end, she gave up right in front of me. I watched as the doctors tried to recusiate her to no avail. A huge part of me had just left. A vacuum was created, I knew my life was gonna change forever.
This is seven years after, the first time I'm talking about it, talking about the day my life went numb. This is seven years after and I still bleed daily from the wound her death left in my heart. I still feel like it was just yesterday. I thought she was gonna see me graduate from school, I thought she was gonna be there the day I get married, I thought she was gonna be there to take care of me when I have my own kids, her grand kids. But it's all gone. Death stole my treasure. I will miss my mum every single minute, till the end of my life.