I cannot recall the image of my grandfather walking.
Sometime in the middle of my adolescence, when I was abroad, I was told by my solemn mother that Kaafa had a stroke that resulted in hemiplegia. When I met him for the first time after this announcement, one of his arms lay limp and he kept squeezing it with the other. I cannot remember which. I was ushered to meet him. Small talk commenced. I muttered something stupid. I could barely look him in the eye. My niece would never cower like that. She speaks brazenly to my Dad. I suppose in another life, I would also exclaim you’re so silly, Kaafa! at my grandfather the way my niece does at hers.
Kaafa’s refusal at being wheeled around was half parts independence and obstinacy at its finest. He would insist on getting up by himself and learned to move without the help of a stick. Walking meant shuffling. He climbed staircases. He walked to mosques. You would not think he had experienced a distressing illness from the way he appeared to dismiss it. Or at least, that is what he made it seem like. Mom used to tell me he cradled unwavering belief in God’s will and would go about the remainder of his life with nothing less than acceptance. How gallant, I used to think, how very optimistic, an unearthly concept to my teenage angst. I did not have any important comments to make about it, save for knowing nods followed by “old age, huh?”
Walking meant shuffling. He never really walked, and I do not remember it anymore. I cannot picture him extending one leg, the ball of his ankle meeting the ground, his foot following suit before his toes briefly hovered and knee bent, the motion continuing smoothly onto the next leg like the things I took for granted. Walking meant shuffling, and he would drag his damaged leg behind him, moving in inches. It broke my heart yet I couldn’t visualize it otherwise. The drag of his leg became a personality trait, its distinct gait morphing into a signature the way his pastel shirts became his uniform.
I jolt upright in the middle of the night sometimes, sobbing and screaming for my mother. I come to consciousness in the process of slapping my mattress. You would think something comical or harrowing happened, that I saw some great nightmare or someone was committing some unspeakable act, but the culprit is always my arm going numb in sleep. It’s the simplest thing, really, a limb numbing itself because you momentarily stressed out a nerve or two sleeping on top of it. Months after Kaafa’s death, I concluded that paralysis is a sensitive subject that strikes my nerves in both its figurative and literal sense. Years after Kaafa’s death, I touched snow without gloves and froze my fingers. I stared at them as my best friend walked ahead of me, swallowing the instantaneous, rising panic she would have had to deal with had I not controlled myself: my hands are numb, my hands are numb, they won’t stop, the numbing won’t stop, they’re dying, Kaafa died, we need to leave, I am going to die, we need to leave right now are torrents I am grateful she never heard.
