Toyi war experience Chapter IX

Monday, April 16, 2007

Okay, continuing with my accustomed post about Civil war in my country, I will bring what I left pending last time.
The sweetness of aunt Marin, she had lost her 2 kids and the approach to Me and my brother reminded her own kids. As I said before she had a daughter few years later after her last boy past away, her daughter was a year younger than me and a year older than my brother.
Okay we were like the 3 musketeers, we always played together, we didn’t have toys because we were not in an economic position to have toys, but that didn’t stop us to play and we didn’t miss toys. (you only miss what you have lost anyways); we got very creative playing with branches, flowers, stones, leaves, climbing trees, plastic dishes & pans we were used to grab from Granny’s kitchen. We spent great amount of time watching my grandpa work on his evil scientist projects (very fun); So aunt Marin loved to do my curls, pet me and always got me nice dresses; I started calling her mother … I didn’t rationalize this but I believe the lack of a mother and getting my aunt affection made me declare her my mother.
Well hello we also had company, other cousins… they were older than us, reason why they never played with us (they were not going to play with babies like us lol) they were kids from another aunt that also lived in the same house, 2 boys and a girl (girl was 9, 10 & 11). Aunt Marin husband abandoned her while she was pregnant of her last baby; she worked at a local Bank. There was a local National University building right across the street, one day tank noise woke us up… they parked in front of our house and raid the building, they checked in every single room and took the people out and closed it. We had never seen a real war tank before only in the movies and looked very scary and cool. Some soldiers picked up my brother and played with him for a while later on the tanks left leaving few soldiers watching the looked building door.
In those days aunt Marin felt very sick but didn’t pay too much attention to it, but she got to a point were the fevers were very high and she started swelling and was almost unable to walk. Granny took her to the doctor and the diagnosis was Cancer in her uterus and was on second stage, they said with chemotherapy she would be able to survive. Well family decided to go ahead with treatment, but things got uglier war talking. There were shut outs every single night and aunt Marin could barely move, her pain was sharp and she was unable to sleep complaining… sometimes my family had to take her to the hospital in plain curfew in the middle of the night thanks to out neighbor that owned a Taxi Cab & that didn’t care the danger to be shot, he would accompany my dad and Granny carring aunt Marin.
I worried very much and it was hard to think that none of them may come back alive, the dawns were long for me and all I could do was to watch over my little brother sleep.
Okay after some months of going-coming, midnight trips, lots of spent nights with aunt Marin doctor had a new diagnose… the cancer was gone but the chemotherapy had permanently damaged her kidneys and needed a transplant immediately they tested the adults in my family for compatibilities and found aunt Wilma, aunt Wilma lived in the country capital since she married; she was completely willing to give her kidney for her sister, they went ahead with the surgery… and performed the transplant, few months later aunt Marin died at age 33for surgery complications. Honestly I sort of didn’t want to write this chapter just because of this, I didn’t know how to put this in words because this is a moment in my life that is very hard and sad to describe my feelings. When my aunt was agonizing, they took us (kids) to the other part of the house, I sensed there was something far from right, lots of motion among the family; people coming others going, others commenting about her words to them, others trying to hide that they were crying, I felt desperate and I tried to listen what people were saying waiting to hear at least that she was doing fine. Few hours later some other family member approached to us (kids), we all sat and she told us that aunt Marin was not going to be with us any longer (Toyi cries) that she has gone to heaven, and now was an angel.. That night they made us wear our nicest clothing (a dress she bought for me in the past) and the funeral was held at home because of the war and curfew to avoid exposing family and friends, I remember all the lights in the room she was in, all the flowers and all the people around us, I approached to her coffin and asked my dad to hold me up to see her, she was there laying, I felt good at the moment because I didn’t see her suffering, her face looked relaxed and far from her common pain expression, she looked beautiful wearing a dress I tried to recognize but I couldn’t, it was a light purple dress, I observed her chest and confirmed she wasn’t breathing … she was like a doll (beautiful and lifeless, just like when you lay a doll and closes her eyes) I even thought, yes she is indeed an angel now.