Her Nature Refuses To Leave Her

I have always been wary of old men and women and a little scared of meeting them alone in lonely isolated footpaths in the village pathways surrounded by overgrown shrubs on both side than I am of ghosts and the stories surrounding them. Those kinds of routes are almost in all the villages in my town that are part and parcel of every kid's memory as we grow up. I have an aunty, my father's younger sister that got married to one man about three villages away from ours. She is a cantankerous woman by nature. By my estimation, she is a good woman but nature is nature. You can't shed it like snakes do. Nah. The woman, I was weary of her anytime she came to our house for one thing or the other. She will complain about her son and her son's wife doing this and that. Always complaining about things like that that you will be talking to yourself if you are giving her advice on taking it easy. Nah. Not that my aunty. Once her mind is set on any issue, it's fixed. Try not to talk her out of it for you will be talking to yourself. Cecillia they call her. Funny bearing such a modern name and yet she is of the '40s generation. 

She is old, timid, illiterate and poor. She is that kind of woman that takes religious things at face value and some scrupulous fellas hiding behind church and gullible olds there to commit one sin or the other through proxy don't miss people like her. That is how I see the life that my aunty lived as an old lady attending one organization or the other inside there. You will always hear from her "I have told it to virgin mary and i know she will do it for me" coming from her once she is in one of her cantankerous moods and is quarreling with someone or the other. 

I saw her alive last in the middle of this year when she came to follow us to a burial of our family inlaw that was being buried around June in the state next to ours. She was too skinny, wasn't looking healthy to me and was talking in a mellowed voice, unlike her that are known to be so assertive. But the buses and cars were filled up and she decided to return home and rest. 

Then, around three months later, we got a call one Friday morning that my aunt died that morning and was to be buried that day. I am supposed to be there since I am the adult male around in my family. I left my work, the content i was working on and that was bad friday too in every sphere when viewed well. There was an economic nationwide protest going on and people were asked to join or stay indoors. Offices were closed and not all the markets were allowed open. Buses were running in full scale so few that were out hiked their fares. Our people are good at seizing evil opportunities to commit more evil on their own people. Imagine the irony. Nationwide economic hardship protest and same day while the protest is still on, some bus drivers found an opportunity to suffer the people more. I showered and found my way from the city back to the village just to be present when the woman was buried.

It had been long i was in their house. Everywhere around their compound have changed, new modern mansions and bungalows springing up here and there. I was even little confused on the particular compound I was going to. I was even asking some people where I was going. Imagine something like that. In the early '90s, that compound was one of most rich and modern but today, it's a dross in comparison to others all round. I was confused on how things change so easily within a decade and how people give up. How my aunty's two sons hung up hope and surrendered economically was surprising to me. They are being choked by the economic dust coming from the financial shoes of all around them. It seems as if nature gave them an uppercut knockout financially.

A lady, from her look must be in her early thirties, was a lone sitter in front of the building. I stopped to enquire if that is where I was looking for and she beckoned me to come in. As I stepped inside the compound, I saw about four people digging a grave by the left side of the building. Outside the four,  the place was too quiet. I suspected that it must be because not about five compounds away from them, a burial ceremony was in full swing, so most people were there planning to come to my aunty's burial later. I greeted the lady and from the window, I saw my aunty dressed in her christian mothers uniform laid on the mattress placed in the parlor there. I went inside to see her well. She seems to me to be more skinny and shrunk in the uniform or maybe the foam she was laid on was too big for her or something.

"What of her son?" I enquired of the lone lady sitting there. " they went to buy a coffin" she replied "his wife is in the kitchen. Should I call her?" "Sure"  after greeting the woman I was seeing well for the first time, I sat there to wait for the coffin and the son. Then, they returned about twenty minutes later and after offloading it with two guys that returned with it for the son was not with them, some people from the other burial started trickling in and the diggers were still sweating it off. 

The first son about five states away was still on his way back from ten in the morning he was told but the protest delayed his bus, so the five hour journey was almost triple that very day. The extended family of my dead aunt has a young priest that happened to be around or was posted in a nearby town or something. When the young priest entered, many villagers knew him well from the way he was being greeted, he was on familiar terrain and I cleared my confusion when I asked questions. Cousin to my cousin. Not long after, the second son that went for the coffin came back. The young priest from his face was even younger than the second son and he sat near the kitchen and later went behind the building to sit there and that told me more that he knew every nook and cranny of that compound like the back of his hand. He was not even behaving like a visitor. 

The weather that had been clear started showing signs of being invaded by clouds that are not friendly to its clearness. There was some sign that the rain is in the offing. It was getting late and the first son that asked they delay the proceeding for him to see his mother for the last time was still half way home about 4:30 pm when he was contacted on the phone again. The people were getting impatient and many had other places to attend burial on the same day. Funny, if you always stay in the city, you will not know the rate people leave this planet. In one village and some nearby, so many burial ceremonies were simultaneously happening the same day that sad Friday and will be so in many places the next day too.

It was around five the first son was contacted again and he was still very far from the state. People were getting restless and the priest had an account to deliver to the parish priest, he was getting restless also and the second son conferred with some other extended family members and 5:30 was fixed to end the waiting. Around 5:30 pm, my aunty was put in the ground and covered. I went back that evening to the city.

You could not believe it. About three days afterwards, I was writing in our family dining room when I heard a visible sigh and I looked, there was my aunty buried just three days earlier carrying a  shoulder bag walking away from me. After about five steps, she turned and glanced at me before hurrying away. Wherever it was she was heading to, it was to continue her search for her killer for I found out on her burial day that some were insinuating that I was her killer. So, she must have been following me around and monitoring me without my knowing. I ignored her and continued my writing as if nothing happened for truly, nothing happened in my estimation.

A week or two ago, I was at the same table, writing yet again and it came to a time when her memory crossed my mind for a split second. What I heard behind me visibly was "do you hear that?" I turned, she was pushing herself out of the about seven other people she was in their middle. They all sat on a single file behind me following my work. Again, i ignored her because i have found out that that person i see twice since her death isn't a ghost in real terms but a broken away confused spirit that believed she still had a stake on earth and was seeking for herself that was buried three months ago. Spirit with unfinished earthly business to see through.

As I picked up a pen to draft this story, I had done my outline and was developing it and when she heard her name and descriptions I was making, about her being cantankerous, she appeared by my right frowning face seriously like she does in real life. I nearly laugh out loud. My aunty is still my aunty even in death. Her nature stuck like glue. She does that in real life too.