A love letter for my grief

Dear Fez

My phone reminded me it was your birthday last month. It happens every year. I suspect I may have added this reminder as a way to remember you alive, every year. Not that I could ever forget you. And for some reason I missed you more this year. Hence this letter. Every other year I would say a silent happy birthday to you. But this year felt different. I’m not sure what exactly I missed. Perhaps the fact that we never took pictures. That I lost our messages in my old phone. 

And yet I remember you every time I wear mismatched earrings (and even when I wear matching earrings). You always seemed to pull it off and make it look cool (I look like I’m trying too hard). I still have the kanga you gave me. It’s still intact because I hardly use it for fear of losing it and therefore losing you. I still have your tv. I never did get it fixed. The screen shattered and I lost the remote. I took it to Bang and Olufsan but they couldn’t fix it. That was our last conversation. Talking about the tv. And now it’s sitting in a storage unit somewhere. I have the inclination to keep it forever as an object of affection. Everytime I pay for the storage unit I think it’s quite ridiculous; to pay money for an object I will never use. But perhaps it’s a memorial that I need.

I had tried to give the tv away to an archive that houses material related to gays and lesbians. But the conversation fizzled. I had imagined I would write an essay explaining how I came to get your tv. And how I never got to give it back to you or your mom. It’s such a strange object to have a hold of me all on my own. Sometimes I think I made the story up. The tv is too heavy and too random to keep at someone’s house. So it will remain in storage as though in a tomb until I figure out how to get it to Cape Town.

This was just a note to say Happy belated Birthday Fez! I miss you. I replay my favourite memories over and over again in my mind. Especially the mundane memories: figuring out how to use your iron which had a cord connecting it to the ironing board. The beautiful house in Musgrave behind the sweet school where you worked for a spell. You, meeting my sister in Verulam. Getting stuck in Durban traffic. It was such a sweet short season we had. Hallowed time even. And you left me with so many beautiful connections which feel like an inheritance. And you left me with a simmering rage that I suspect will never go away. 

Source: The Sunday Independent