A Thread of Silent Echoes

Fifty-three minutes before she passed, Granny lifted her voice in a trembling hymn, singing to God with a heart steeped in gratitude.

Nzakomeza ngushimire
Ni wowe undagiye,
Ukamenyera igikwiriye...

Her voice came in shivers, like the wind shaking dry leaves. Still, I caught the tune, and a few words. It was one of those old Catholic hymns she used to hum while slicing green beans or scrubbing her old ibinika, the iron container she used for hot drinks. I sat beside her mattress, the same one her son Katurebe, who died in 1995, had bought twenty-four years ago. She never let me or anyone replace it.

‘I’d rather lie on the floor than let go of that,’ she’d say, and meant it.

That afternoon, she’d asked for water instead of urwagwa, banana beer, her favourite drink. I poured it into a plastic cup and held it to her lips, watching her eyebrows flutter like butterflies in a breeze. That was her way of saying thank you. I had just returned from the small market of Kagugu, five kilometres away, with fresh tomatoes. It was the only way to cook her favourite dish—banana stew with dodo veggies, ibitonore beans, and those firm tomatoes that sizzled just right in the pot.

When I arrived, the song had quieted. Her breaths had turned into pauses—soft, fragile and unsettling. I called the nurse, a neighbour’s daughter, who used to check on her from time to time. She lived a bit far, but had a car. Twenty-two minutes later, I heard it struggle onto our dirt road, horn honking as kids screamed in excitement. Perhaps they only saw a car twice a month. But the nurse arrived too late. Granny’s breath had stopped.