Maybe because I’ve just marked the 24th year of my mum’s death.
Maybe because I’ve been writing about my matrilineage recently.
Maybe because I’m mid-way through a heavy bleed this month.
I’m feeling raw, emotional and at the edge of cracking open.
Taking a break from the screen, I go to refresh my coffee and make some toast. Opening the bread bin, I’m hit by the aroma of fresh bread. But particularly, brown bread. Medium slice brown bread smell. So wholesome and whole. Immediately I’m sent back to the past, to be sitting on the burgundy settee in my nana Amber’s front room, in front of the electric fire with fireplace sleeves filled with brass ornaments and nick-nack, and she’s coming into the room handing over to me a tea plate with a brown bread and butter sandwich. Lurkpak butter. This was her go to when you visited if you were hungry, once she lived alone. After everyone else who she looked after was dead. This butter sandwich or burnt toast. And I always accepted it when offered, glad to be looked after for a change. Glad to get some comfort.
I never stopped to think what trouble she was going to to make it for me. Or how I must have been taking from her dwindling resources of food, living on a little widow’s pension and not being able to make ends meet. She used to drill me with questions, when I visited, about what I was up to, who I was seeing, what I was thinking. And I would answer begrudgingly, thinking she was just being nosy as always. I just wanted to eat my brown bread in peace. In silence. I didn’t even think that I was company for her. That she must have been lonely. Then I only thought about me, and my needs and wants. God I could be a selfish bitch, I realise now.
The bread was soft. Malleable. The butter was smooth and slightly salted. I savoured the texture as I chewed, enjoying the give of the crust to my big teeth. It was soon gone my brown bread and butter sandwich like light, like air, like nothing.
Once I moved away from our small village, it was nearly a week after her death, I found out nana Amber was gone. I hadn’t seen her in months, because, why? Because I was just getting on with my own life. In my own bubble not bothering with my nana Amber, who was living alone and not really looking after herself. Not eating. Maybe even giving up.
I know it wasn't my responsibility to look after her, she still had a son and a daughter living close to keep an eye on her. But I still wonder if I still lived across from her, if I would have still gone in for brown bread and butter sandwiches and reluctant chats. Who knows?
What I do know is that I have regrets where nana Amber is concerned, where my mum, Anita is concerned, even where my great nana Rosa (Amber’s mum) is concerned.
I spent so much time talking to and about the men in my family, that the women just seemed to fade into the background. Part of the fixtures, taken for granted. I suppose I’m just realising this now, in this morning’s light, as I steal an extra slice of brown bread and butter to just savour this memory of nana, Amber a little while longer because I feel history repeating itself.
I'm the aging black woman fading into the background now. Taken for granted. Called upon for comfort, for food and sustenance but not really listened to. Or cared for.
Why would I need to be looked after or paid attention to, haven’t I been providing this care and space and time for others for most of my life? So why would I need or want someone to do this for me now?