To My Lovely Late Grandmother

As day fall and night came, we used to gather around my grand mother. That was our favourite moment during the day. There was a sort of connection between us, the night and my grandmother. There was something magical at that precise moment. My grandmother was a very good story teller,she was so talented that sometimes it seemed like she took part in the stories she used to deliver us. Those stories were full of meaning and through them, she was giving us some life’s lessons that were going to help us later on. That was her way to impregnate us to our culture and roots. Our African realities and environment were well depicted in those stories. My grandmother was teaching us some of our African values such as the value of a word, the bravour of man or the respect that a child owe to an elder person. That is only when I grew up that I felt the effects of those storytelling on my person. The most surprising thing is that I have almost all those stories in mind and whenever I remember them, my heart becomes full of sadness because I know that those moments happen only once in a lifetime. The stories were sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying but we all loved them. We were thrown into a magical world where animals, just as human beings, were able to speak. There was no limit to our imagination. It was just like boarding on an airplane for a world tour. We never got enough of them; we just sat down like stuck to the mat and we looked like statues; the only thing that could make her stop was to see us sleeping; and even at that moment, she could shift from a story teller to a singer of lullaby. During holidays, I used to spend some days with her and she used to take care of me even though she was sick. She was a very good cooker too. She taught us many delicious meals. I can’t end this account without talking about her beauty. Yes she was very beautiful and elegant. Without much pretension I may say that she was the definition of black beauty. And to quote India Arie I can say that, every time I saw her brown skin “it made me think of honey or chocolate”. “Her kisses worth more than gold to me, her hugs worth more than diamond to me” because her arms were my cosy nest; her teeth were as white as an angel’s wings, and with her doe eyes, she was able to brighten up everything that stand around her. As a child, every coin she used to give me was like a billion dollar and everything I bought from that money was like a treasure found in the deepest of the sea.