“Do you have diapers for adults?” I asked. “What brand and size do you prefer?” the teller shot back. It hadn’t occurred to me that I needed to arm myself with specifics. Who knew I even had a right to preference when it came to diapers? I was certain I didn’t need the kind that fastened at the waist. What I needed were pull-up ones, like panties. They came in three sizes: medium, large, and extra-large for 10 pieces in a pack sold at 45,000shs. Taking my time to do the math, because I am the kind that takes her time with numbers, it came to 4,500shs a unit and about 13,500shs would be spent a day if one changed thrice a day. No education or motivational speaker prepared me for this ghetto.
It was 8:30 pm, and I was seated in the overly posh and cushioned seats at First pharmacy, waiting on a round thing to signal me to the counter to make a payment. You know the round things they hand out at the food hub that beeps when your food order is ready? This time, it would beep to alert me my diaper pack and vitamins were ready for pickup. The walls were branded with a “Get well soon” line but I wasn’t falling for it. Like a dentist telling you not to eat sweets and to brush your teeth regularly. They never mean it. How are they going to keep their doors open if you take them seriously?
I am signalled to the counter where I pour out my coins and I am bid goodbye, sent off with a “come back soon, farewell,” which proved my underlying thoughts true. I didn’t enjoy their politeness and hated experiencing their wonderful customer care service. I urge pharmacy attendants to be rude and edgy. Please be mean enough to make me crave my vegetables and hydrate, this is the most I have gathered about healthy living. Point is, make me dread my trips to the pharmacy so that I make better life decisions.
I have found myself making trips like this quite often. As we are busy growing up, our parents are growing old too, as are their parents. Our roles and responsibilities are reshaped and dictated by time. I am the official errand girl for household drugs. I hold people’s medical secrets, histories, and doctors’ reports. My bag is never without receipts from pharmacies or drug packages. I know who is due for a refill, the names of random supplements, the location of different pharmacies and which sells what and at what price.
Jjaja, the lead matriarch on my maternal side, is at our home for care. At 86 years, time is overwhelming and overtaking her body faster than my youth can imagine. She loves her home to bits but had to leave it because she could no longer perform the basics on her own and her walking stick was of no aid. I didn’t imagine that sticks too succumb to the burden time presents, and eventually give way. Hers had grown tired of the weightage that was cast upon it. My jjaja graduated to needing help from people to go on about her life and that’s how this drama unfolded.
We know jjajas to be sweet and smoochy so it was hard to believe the stories of how she didn’t respond with grace to strangers being in her most personal space and vulnerable moment. She would trade care from strangers for double the indifference and resentment. There was never a perfect match for her when it came to minders. We have had a series of them come and go I have lost count. First, was the one who wore very tight pants that didn’t settle well with my jjaja’s optics. People who wear very tight pants are up to no good according to her. The next one, a lovely young mother needing a place to stay for her and her son was just annoying jjaja out of her skin. She wore the right size skirts but her child was too loud for jjaja’s ears. Her son just didn’t know when not to cry and Jjaja wasn’t going to put up with the noise. She had to go. The subtext was don’t cry when you are in the matriarch’s home. Then, we had one who chewed rather too loudly, then the one who stole the Minute maid juice, and then one who ate large portions of food, more than what we thought was standard for humans. There was always something with them but the unsaid truth was they were all strangers that were seeing her at her lowest. They had not earned the place to.
Eventually, she put her frail foot down and demanded that one of her surviving 10 kids come from the city and take care of her. The charm that the city hustle presented would not let her children hear her plea. None dared to leave the Kampala dream for Mityana. Everyone was very far from willing to resettle in the village, even for her. Her children had built lives somewhere else away from her, their kids were going to schools in the city, and they were preoccupied with their 9-5s to think of substituting it with the humbleness the village presented. It was never up for discussion and jjaja had to give in. She asked to be brought to the city but all shied away from voluntarily opening their doors to her. I don’t blame them; the stakes were too high. With the economy, one can’t afford to sit home taking care of someone else, you both would be bound to starve. She demanded that one of them, not a stranger, look after her.
With time, Nabuule, my siblings and I’s bearer, the third last born, gave in. I am not sure she was thrilled about the decision but she couldn’t stand her mom being angry at her. One Friday, in November, as most people were bargaining with their wallets over that one commodity they would get for Black Friday, my family was welcoming jjaja in. She took 30 minutes to walk from the car to her temporary quarters and that is when I knew life had to slow down to meet her at this pace. This is how we came to schedule our routine around her.
She wakes up very early and stays in bed, waiting for someone to change her position and draw the curtains. She eats the same meal for breakfast, lunch, and supper; fish and matooke. Anything more or less, you have deliberately insulted her. We sometimes get away with sweet potatoes but don’t cross the line with rice or posho. Never. It’s a battle you can’t win. She eats very small portions of food; the kind that fancy restaurants serve on a very large plate with a leaf on top but cost you a kidney. The schedule of the day has my mom go in first. She sharpens her emotional muscles and wrestles with patience as she helps jjaja with her shower. After, a long argument about what to wear. Jaja is particular about the optics, about how the people who should visit cannot find an elder such as her in a dress. The dress invented the word dressing, why would she not appreciate such creativity on her body? She insists on dressing up like the mother of a bride at a Kwanjula: full gomesi with its right ingredients; proper inner layers that amount to about 4 pieces of fabric and the kikoyi. These are the inner garments, only. Then, she demands that my mom wrap her up like a prize with her Kitambala and sit her on her bed like the gift she is to mankind. She carried 8 matriarchs; I think she is well deserving of this hustle.
When my mom is done with the first battle, I walk in already defeated. Sometimes I am rushing to get back to an online meeting, or some stubborn excel sheet but all this doesn’t faze her, she won’t rush for anyone. She will take a break in the middle of brushing her teeth and I will have to wait. I attempted to help brush her teeth once to beat time and it didn’t end well. It turns out not all gums have teeth to brush. I had to keep to the top left gum, only. Brushing teeth is followed by our delightful moisturizing session. I have to get the Movit soaked into her skin until it fills all her pores for her to let me go. Her skin is tender, it is letting loose in all the places it should be hanging onto her bones and is carefully dotted with black spots like that on Morgan Freeman’s face. Her skin complexion is a mix of a light shade of brown and black dots. When we are done moisturizing, I start to comb her mane. She wears a crown of silver kinky hair with a streak of grey-black at the periphery of her temple. The black has really fought the good fight but it’s losing the war. She lost all her lashes and eyebrows so that’s one task out of the way. Then we move on to breakfast. After breakfast, we get a commercial break, then we have walks to build up her strength. About one hour is spent getting her around and back to her bed. Most of the time she is dressed like a wealthy lady and wrapped in a blanket as her body temperature is volatile, it relies on external aid to generate warmth.
During most meals, my sisters and I take turns slicing her food into edible chunks, picking the spiteful tiny bones from her fish, and carrying her cup of juice or tea for her to drink on extremely hard days. She is very keen about her cup; her vision is blurred but not enough for her not to tell her cup apart. Her cup is a bold yellow and larger than life. It’s heavy for her to lift though that’s the hill she is more than willing to die on. They will ask “what killed her?” and we will say in unison, the weight of a yellow basin with a handle, disguised as a cup.
We took her to the hospital last week. It was about everything in her body and every bone was hurting. She’d caught a cold from my niece who had been given the sole responsibility of spreading the flu across the household. Jjaja had a hard time sneezing; each sneeze came with so much effort. Her heart pumped so hard, it hurt her chest. Don’t get me started on the horror that is belching. At first, I thought she was having a seizure. It was a belch that needed to get out of the body but lacked the will to help itself out. Its basic things like this: chewing, belching, and sneezing that scream privilege to those who still possess the strength to ably perform them. When we got to the hospital, she mentioned her back, head, wrists, joints, and the thing with no name that is comfortably seated at her chest causing her chronic chest aches. The flu, uncontrollable shaking of the body, the intestines, the cold and the list went on. Her lack of taste. She concluded with “I feel like a pack of bones and air”.
She dreads the nights, stripped of her fabrics and dressed like a mere mortal in a dress for the night, then we call it a night dress. She stalls the night activities with everything in her so that she is not left alone. She always mumbles her goodnight with uncertainty. Proud for having made it through the day in the hands of learning on-the-job nurses but with a hint of uncertainty about the night. My mother thinks jjaja fears death and always jokes about how she will tie a rope around her waist when death comes, but who wants to go out so easily? It must be really lonely going through this, much as we are there, we can’t fully understand what she feels and what she is going through.
Knowing we are going to do this again the next day, there are days we wake up not feeling like we are up for the task. We show up regardless, knowing it’s not any easier for her. She still shows up for herself and we stand with her in solidarity.