8/9/2019 Grandma Moniade

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Grandma Moniade

The car drew up to her compound and I felt a sense of sheer anticipation, I had

waited for this experience all of my life to meet my maternal grandmother.

However, the circumstances surrounding this visit were tragic and very sad. At theage of 54, my mother had died and my siblings and I had decided that we would

bury her in her beloved homeland.

Memories of my grandmother were initially based on my mother's reminiscing.

Through looking at and watching her photographs, I had established a link that

would see me right through my childhood and up until her death.

We entered the humid, gray and dank room that was my grandmother's, the room

where she would have most probably nurtured all 3 of her children. Both of mygrandmothers were 1st wives.

There she sat; sunken and forlorn depleted in mourning. Her body was frail and

she was shrunken so unlike the majestic majesty of the black and white photoswhere she sat with her aura as bright as the sun, her back as straight and as sure and

confident. In her photos she was dressed in all of her west African regalia and I

imagined the slight flicker of a smile on her lips were evocative of her authority ofthat of 1st wife. A mother, a wife, she sits knowing that she is looked upon with

great responsibility as she gazes at the lens with awe her eyes with a deep and

penetrating knowing. My grandma, the woman I admired through an image, a blackand white almost sepia photograph. Yet from the moment I saw her sitting

surrounded by family and neighbours who excitedly singled me out as 'definitely

hers', we continued a relationship governed by deep and profound feelings of lovethrough telepathy as grandma spoke no English.

The timid and sad woman I witnessed physically that day for the first time,

definitely remains my hero today.

I miss YOU Nana, Madame Moniade Olagundoye nee Akinrinlude. Rest in Love

Iyaagba!

Yewande Ogunnaike 2008