Perspective: Grief Grows, Like Ugu
- Roseline Mgbodichinma Anya Okorie
- Apr 16
- 5 min read
Birth, life, and death — each took place on the hidden side of a leaf - Toni Morrison
It’s been weeks since my aunt passed. This morning, the soil feels like a blanket bringing warmth to my heavy feet. So much of planting is invasion; the scattering of earth’s secrets to deepen a new tale and form new roots.
In the middle of my heartache, my heels partner with the ground to move me through the thistles of longing. In the presence of trees with large bright leaves, the air is abundant, yet my lungs wrestle with the presence of oxygen. Counting my breathing feels like a sign of survivor's guilt. Breathe in, count one, Breathe out, count two, as if to say stifled breaths will become smoke signals, seep into a grave, and awaken the dead.
My aunt has been gone longer than it takes to plant ugu in the soil and watch it germinate. If her corpse were an ugu seedling lowered into the ground, we would expect a rebirth in seven to fourteen days. This kind of resurrection will not make us run away in fear, but it will take away grief, make us confident in the business of living again. Among ugu plants, resuscitation is possible; dead ugu plants can come back to life. Maybe only such plants can belong in the world.
The English name for ugu is fluted pumpkin. Even this translation has a musical essence that approves of regrowth through song. A song is a sound, and a sound is supposed to be a living thing, a thing capable of waking a person from an endless dream, even if that dream is as final as death.
Ugu is a creeping vine. When cultivated, it is usually planted on with stakes to keep it upright as it winds its way upwards as though it is trying to escape mud. Even a leaf knows how to avoid dirt. Were my aunt an ugu leaf, she would have known how to evade her own death, interrogating the possibility of remaining six feet under and fighting for life instead.
If the ground can swallow us whole, then we are truly not of this world, just like the Bible says. I don’t know how I feel about this, about toiling and living in a place that ultimately does not belong to me, a place where people I love leave and do not come back, a place where death is as much a thing of chance as living.
It’s been weeks since my aunt passed and the heavens have not descended. Rain still flogs our zinc roof mercilessly. Death always needs witnessing. My mother was called to look at her sister’s body and confirm that life had indeed left her. In the midst of her wailing, she noticed that her sister’s locks were due for retwisting. The overgrowth on her flaky scalp revealed new, tight curls and my mother wanted to give her a better hairdo, right there on the mortuary slab. The locks were much like the strings coiling on an ugu stalk, unmissable, stubborn. They had finally started to grow in length but now they would simply stop. It is life that grows things.
My mother sang dirges for many mornings after her sister’s demise. Her tongue constantly rose in mournful melody. Each syllable fought with snot and spittle to reveal a rhythm she hoped was transcendent enough to wake the dead. It’s extremely painful to lose a sister you raised like a child. My mother wept as if death could be appealed through her sobs. To her, it was as if she closed her eyes for one second and the life she was stewarding was snatched from her.
She lost her baby sister, while I lost an aunt who saw me as her baby. The world did not end, trees are still growing, the sun is still shining, and even the birds still have the audacity to sing.
Everything comes from a seed, even us. We all have a method to life: the ugu seed is planted with its tip facing down to ensure germination, much like birthing a child in breech position. But can nature ever be in breach? Sometimes the position we take is nature's way to mould us, to prepare our bodies for the crooked shape of this world.
My aunt died before she got a chance to bear children, an antithesis to the dioecious nature of ugu leaves. Sometimes it feels like a blessing, other times a sad thing. She would have preferred someone moving through this world with her DNA. We would have loved it too. I would look on this child with love and be comforted that she left us a piece of her but this is also selfish because not many loves rival the love of a present mother.
It’s been weeks since my aunt passed and the aroma of egburuegbu from my mother’s kitchen still permeates my room. Egburuegbu is a ceremonious vegetable soup, made in my hometown, Ekoli Edda, in Nigeria. It is made to both celebrate life and grieve death. Whether a person is celebrating a marriage or burying a loved one, Egburuegbu is present. It involves boiling ugu leaves for ten to fifteen minutes before placing them onto a flat surface, chopping them into pieces with a machete before the seasoning process begins.
My mother did not need to cook a new batch when her sister died; we had enough leftovers to serve some visitors whose hunger was often louder than their condolences. Some people go to lengths to show they can cry more than the bereaved and it is comical. This theatrical performance of grief grows like an ugu plant when it is watered. I know my aunt is having a time looking down from heaven at some of the people who didn’t care about her existence, people who wail and roll on the floor in my mother’s sitting room.
I ask my mother the literal meaning of egburuegbu and she translates directly: “Cut, cut.” I ask my cousin and he has a different interpretation: “To kill, to kill.”
When I ask my father, he says to enjoy the soup without trying to destroy it with etymology. My aunt took my father’s advice long before he dished it. She loved egburegbu and on the days we cooked it, she would sit cross-legged in the kitchen, patiently waiting for a serving of her favourite soup.
This is how I choose to remember her, as someone who loved without caring about the origins of the life around her, or how it will all end.
