My grandmother was a tiring woman when she was alive. She shouted at us when we were being naughty and beat us up rarely when we outdid ourselves in behaving like rascals. She loved us with all her heart, which was so big it had enough space to love many other people who were not family. I remember how every Christmas we'd look forward to her yummy over-decorated cake that we had after our big meal on the dinner table.
It was a good quality wooden dinner table with eight chairs. Very lovely and tasteful. There were more than eight of us, so my aunties and all the other older people would sit on the other chairs while we felt like royalty at the high table. I remember how we would be dressed in our new clothes and have a special prayer before lunch thanking God for the past year. Grandma would also make requests for God to keep us safe the following year and for us to do well at school. Then we would indulge in the feast with our eyes fixed on the main reward for finishing our food; the cake.
On Christmas day Grandma was at her best behaviour. She would speak to us with unusual patience and kiss us all and love us so much we could see it through her eyes. On Christmas day we would forget about her disturbing habit of spoiling our fun when we re being naughty, and for that one day we would understand that she truly loved us, even more than our own parents - it seemed.
After having our feast we were taken for a drive by our uncle. All of us at the back of the van so that everyone would see our new clothes. We chattered all we pleased without being told we are making noise, and we pointed at the other children on our way, also dressed in their best clothes, and we'd shout out to them, "Happy-eeeee!" and they would respond "Happy-eee!" as they looked on with envy. Because we were in a van, and there were many of us, so the other children surely wished they were like us. Vanity crept in from an early age for us.
Us in our best clothes, at our best behaviour, even the boys did not get their clothes dirty on Christmas day. The older people by afternoon had usually started drinking their beer. Almost every adult in my family drinks beer, or wine, or ciders. It's all ok as long as you are not in primary school. As soon as you pass that stage, you begin to hide it in juice bottles and think that no adult will see you. And the good thing is that the adults would see you and pretend to be ignorant. They liked to see us become worn out like them. I saw it in the way they said with a sly smile on their faces, "you think you are smart hey, I hope you are not drinking beer in that bottle". Why didn't they check?
As it became dark the speakers were taken outside and the music was blasted. The sounds of Brenda Fassie drawing the neighbours one by one into our big yard, as big as my grandma's heart. We would all be dancing, no child no adult. All of us persuaded by Brenda's charm, or Platform No.1's wedding tunes. We danced, they drank, and we realised that they were doo drunk to care what we did so we did quite a lot. We would go to grandma's room where all the goodies were hidden so that we do not abuse them. We stole what we could, we went to the fridge to drink milk from the carton, we fought, we went wild with excitement.
We woke up the next day in our Christmas clothes, sleeping on top of one another, in no order and with no care in the world. Every 26th of December we woke up late. The whole house except for Grandma. She always sat by her chair in the sitting room, always listening to the radio with a cup of tea in her hand. Always greeting us in the sweetest way, not even our own mothers did that. "Hello ngwanaka" "Hello pinkie" "Hello baby" "Hello ponka" "Hello my chocolate" "Hello mama" "Hello papa" as we each walked out from the bedroom hungover from playing, dresses wrinkled up. No one shouts at us for sleeping in our clothes on the 26th of December. Everybody is hungover and everybody understands.
Those were the best Christmas days of my life. Church in the morning, big lunch, pretty dresses, food, and my Grandma's love. She is now gone to rest forever, left so gently like a child. I was grown when she left, loving her back and begging God to keep her. I couldn't imagine life without her love. I couldn't imagine what would bring us together again besides her funeral. Cousins, uncles, friends, everyone misses her. And on Christmas day, everyone thinks about her and talks about "back in the good old days". No longer together, each family makes their own plans, each teenager her own ways, and no one really cares. Grandma is gone.
