Dead silence: When home is no longer home

When Eva Akeyo (pictured above) goes home, the first thing she does is visit her parents’ grave and sits there for a while. If it isn’t shipshape, she will pick up tools and tend to it, wedding it until it looks good again. 

“While there, I feel like I am connecting with them,” she says.

It wasn’t always like that. Going home used to be an event everyone in the family looked forward to, given that with everyone grown and scattered all over, it was only once a year that almost all the ten siblings would be together again with their parents, re-living the good old days.

“We would reminisce about sibling rivalries and sibling fights. We would reminisce about those cheeky moments. It was all fun because we are people who love family and we make jokes and above all I think we are very loving and intelligent people so to speak,” she says.

Everything changed when their mother died in 2003. It was just never the same after that. 

“One fact is that when the mother goes first, the home gets lonelier because people don’t visit a home that doesn’t have a mother,” says Akeyo. “So instantly, the home starts feeling very cold because the warmth of a mother who receives people is gone Again there is that loneliness that creeps in on the father because mothers are like everything.”

The siblings would still go home to visit their father, but this time they had to carry gas burners, food and all that to restore the feeling of being at home. When their father also died in 2017, last vestiges of what they knew as home died with him. 

“It got worse because the death of a parent leaves you completely empty, no matter how old you are. You feel lost in the sense that you don’t have anybody to turn to for parental warmth, parental guidance and parental presence in general,” she says.

Silas Kongo knows that feeling all too well. Going home used to be the ultimate family time full of fanfare, fun and food.

“Just having a meal as a family, especially under a tree, not even inside the house. That’s my favourite memory from those days,” says Kongo. “When our wives and our sisters would team up to make a meal for all of us when we were at home and we would just enjoy a meal as a family. Of course mum would always bring up some stories of how she struggled to bring us up so that our wives understood that we are not just what we are. We were made.”

When his mother died in 2007, home was no longer really home. 

“When mum left it was a big blow to us. We had never experienced such a thing,” says Kongo. “We considered our mother an even bigger and stronger pillar in that home than our father because she was very aggressive. She used to do so much. And the big question was, ‘How will the old man cope with that?’ 

As it turned out, he couldn’t. When she died, it was as if his father’s spirit died with her, for he was never the same again, and he followed her to the grave three years later in 2010. 

“I think mzee died because of the stress he was undergoing at home without our mum. He just changed drastically. He had been a jovial, charming guy who used to do his own things at home. He was a great farmer there, keeping some chicken and keeping cattle but after she died he was just low,” says Kongo.

When that last light went out from the home, going to a deserted home lost its appeal.

“Basically, the real urge and appetite of going home sort of got lost. We could only go home occasionally, say in December, because we agreed with the family that we would be meeting at least once a year at home during the long holidays when our children are not in school, mostly over Christmas,” says Kongo.

“It didn’t really work out so well. Not all of us could meet at home at one go. So you would find at least four or five and that was it.”

When people lose their parents as adults who do not need financial support, they feel the loss of the presence of their parents, according to Dr Charity Waitihima, a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at USIU Africa. 

The bereaved person goes through five stages of grief. 

“When you hear that your parent is dead you first go through denial then the second stage is anger. You can be angry with anybody or anything - whether it is God or even the dead person,” says Dr Waithima. 

“The next stage is to bargain. Wishing something different would happen. When that does not happen, that is when the next stage, depression, sets in.”

The person settles when they get to the last stage, which is acceptance, which comes with time. For normal grief, it takes between six months to one year. 

“When acceptance settles in and those left behind are adults, they now know there is role change, so there is a need for adjustment. The only way to cope is to accept that there is role change and there is a need for adjustment,” says Waithima. 

“You used to go home and find your mum or find your dad. Now you start reconstructing that in your mind because our thoughts, perceptions, attitudes and whatever commissions we have are the ones that affect our emotions. 

“When our emotions are affected, our behaviour is affected. Now you are able to accept that mum and dad are not there, roles have to change. I used to go home and have mum open the gate for me or cook for me and all that. You now start adjusting in your mind and as you adjust in your mind your emotions will start accepting that yes, it is not all gloom. You now start knowing that you will be going home, not find your mum and dad and you will do all that is needed. That brings you to adjustment,” she says.

That whole process is the same thing that Akeyo and Kongo both went through.

“Before it was so hard. We would break down, get nostalgic and all,” says Akeyo. “The loss threw us off a bit but we picked ourselves up and found ourselves there. So right now we are good to go and we still go back home.”

Both families have reached the adjustment stage and despite home never being the same again, still, go home at least once a year to meet there as a family. The roles their parents used to play, like being the custodians of the home and providing emotional support are now played by other people. Both families have relatives either staying close by or in the home, making sure the homes stay alive.

“As old as you are, when your parents are alive you have to keep them informed about what you are doing in life, however little it is,” says Kongo.

“Right now you are basically almost only on your own. You can only inform maybe your older brother when you are doing something. We keep up with birthdays, checking progress on results of exams so that we are all informed just for support purposes.”

Waithima says that as long as one has conceptualised that there is change and that one needs to adjust, they will be settled. 

“It does not remove all the grief. The grief will remain for quite some time. But it will cause you to not avoid. Because if you think that it is all gloom when you go to that home, you will use avoidance. You will avoid going to that home. Avoidance is an unhealthy coping mechanism,” says Waithima.

“So you need to gradually go through systematic desensitisation of self. The first day you go and they are not there, it will be harder, but as you gradually go back the second and third time and you have already conceptualised and accepted that they are not there, the feelings and emotions decrease gradually and eventually, you will adjust to going to that home. You will feel a little sad but it won’t destabilise you completely.”

She says that grief of a loved one and loss of home as one knew does not go away quickly, but the intensity of the emotions decreases with time if one is going through normal grief.

“As long as you keep accepting and adjusting, you will never forget them in life, but the intensity of the emotions that come with that grief decrease with time,” says Waithima. In the end, a home will always be where the heart is.