Aïssatou,
It seems so fitting that I use this name and style with all that sits on this heavy heart...and yet I find the words will not come with the ease my tears do...appreciate my disjoint words and deep grief...may Ms Mariama Ba not look unfavourably on my doing from her resting place... semblance of composure regained, I begin
It seems Hestia really does not get the credit she so greatly deserves...
I see the slow trickle, a hellish descent, and all I can do is weep in my forced sequestration...I guess this talk was bound to happen, and sadly while the voice began in concern, its amplification rang a bit vitriolic in my ears... I guess this is a bad time to stop being the eternal advocate. so you were questioned, and you laid bare what was never hidden, and made light shine on things held only away from those who would not ask... you were already steadily losing faith in the institution to which you played the anchor, the last standing pillar in a glorious temple worn down by so many things, a restoration proving merely an excavation; in your eyes slowly growing dim and immune to hope's feeble illumination... "They've moved on, found other friends...I'm alone" you are not alone, but It always happens that the skeptic and the untrusting find it hard to invest further where no easy trail lie...We shared a lot, and bonded intensely, so it is no wonder that after resuscitation the things that caused its premature cardiac arrest, untended, should reclaim death's victim, a sacrifice for a sacrifice is needed to complete any circle...you were not put on the pyre, no matter how it may feel so, because what was done to you is what needs doing for all, and after this laying bare do we then decide to move forward together...or dissemble and in factions part ways... I will venture to say this, you were more centred in the resurrection than any would give credit for...you've sacrificed- stubbornly?yes unwisely? maybe- and now we draw ragged breaths because the whole body does not believe it lives truly...the heart can do nothing more than ferry blood, the brain must re-alert itself to its state as living, blood must re-absorb oxygen and nourishment and disseminate it to the other parts of the body, to renew them from a spell of deep grey otherworldliness...the process of resurrection so easily sours and makes a zombie out of a body that should either be a person or a corpse...but we have all lived too much in the "zombified" un-reality...lulled ourselves into strained embittered silence... when truly those save the heart who remained seemingly fully invested were in fact failing to launch from safe port from fear of stormy seas...I am not one to find a reason to question men's motives with a light as would give the unknown a negative light, in fact I eternally believe in the goodness of all people (much to the chagrin of several persons)...but it seems time for me to grow up, to open my eyes yet again to the world...and rip open wounds that have festered to the light of day... and try healing them the right way. I am misconstrued, misinterpreted as I myself misinterpret and I have unwittingly misled...but in their cessation may I begin to make penance... and you...you who sit and read with the lenses of many and the vision of none, who should peruse this letter written and shared with you... for YOU...you who have been loved and loved fiercely, you have been coddled and you have been given so much, such trust, affection, opportunity, and yet in respite for those things you repay with...your meagre and reluctant offering...Mene Tekel... but as yet...[Upharsin]?
Your Ramatoulaye,
gender time and country made irrelevant by our circumstance
