THE woman, fair with slight oriental looks, stood alone at the top of a hard mud dam. She was not like the locals, a stranger from a foreign land, not lost, but there with a purpose.
Angela was her name, an Indo-Guyanese, mixed with European, Scottish and Chinese ethnicity going all the way back to colonial days.
“Interesting, our history,” she had always thought while growing up.

She took a deep breath and looked around the cemetery, a place where the grounds she had never walked but a place she knew in her heart she would have had to visit one day.
She had left the shores of this former British colony since she was a young girl, returning now after thirty years.
“Such a long time,” she mused, “Seems like a dream that I’m actually here.”

As the years had gone by, living in a new country, she had nurtured in her heart the desire to come back home to visit. She wanted that nostalgic feeling of being home, to feel the thrill of a place she had never stopped loving. But she got no support from her family, whose main goal was to build a life in a foreign land.
“I will find my way one day,” she had promised herself.

Now an adult, divorced and self-independent, she finally fulfilled that promise to herself. But sadly, there was now another reason for the trip.
She walked along the dam that was alongside a side lane with flowing brown water sugarcane plants stretching from its bank to the far horizon. She stopped once, looked around a little uncertainly then continued walking and a little while later, she saw the gravesite.

Emotions she had kept in control for years, rose slowly, sending a tremor through her body. She took a deep breath again and said quietly, “Hello, Nani, I’m here.”
Her grandmother had died ten years ago and her ashes flown home from America to be interred here because she also desired to return home. Angela has missed her so much, her precious memories giving her the will and strength to go on with her life, always winning battles.

But unexpectedly, a major battle appeared from nowhere and blindsided her.

Breast cancer!
That diagnosis had hit her so hard that it had left her mind numb and her only thought was, “Oh God, I’m going to die soon and I haven’t gone back home yet.”
She had thought of her Nani and somehow found the mental strength to pull herself up, one day at a time.

“This is the battle of my life,” she had told herself and fought hard through treatment, holding onto positive thoughts and hopes to live for each new day.
She sat there, now in the cemetery, in reflections, passing her hand slowly over the tomb.

“You were my everything from the time I was born. You never left me, then migration separated us until you came there too, but years later death took you away.”
A lump formed in her throat, overcome by emotions and after a while, she said, “I couldn’t say ‘goodbye’, Nani, wishing now just to hear your voice and your laughter, and watch you work on your vegetable garden.”

Tears filled her eyes, remembering those wonderful days, and she voiced, “But you know what, I’m here now, close to you, close to everything I loved and that is all I need for everyday I live from now on.”

There was a light of determination in her eyes and in the tone of her voice, “Stay with me, Nani.”
A cool gust of wind blew across the cemetery and Angela smiled, a happy feeling surging through her body. She hadn’t had that feeling in a long time, not that enthusiasm. The cancer in her body had been diagnosed in time, giving her a fighting chance of surviving. But there were days when she had felt like giving up and accept her fate. But a small, persistent voice always roused her from the slumber of her tired mind to keep on fighting.

“You were always a warrior, that I remembered,” she said with a little laugh.
She got up a little while later to leave, saying, “Tomorrow is a new day and every tomorrow therein, until my time is up and when that day comes, we’ll be together again. But for now, there are many things I have to do.”

In the next three weeks, with the help of a few cousins and paid labour, she managed to clean and repaint the tombs, including where her grandfather also laid. A new grill work was installed and flowers planted.
Angela smiled with satisfaction, “Now I can live my life like I’ve never lived it before.”

The old country house where she had been born and lived all her life before migration was in a bad shape but she worked on the repairs and refurbishing for a new outlook and comfort. She invited families who were still there and neighbours she knew for little get-togethers, visited her old school and made a monetary donation. She went shopping, walking around New Amsterdam, her old town and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

She sat on the culvert in the evenings, like old times, enjoying the fresh, cool breeze and chatting with neighbours, laughing at jokes as they reminisced about the older people.
The beautiful little things of life, priceless in their own.
She felt like coming home had given her a new lease on life, like she wasn’t sick anymore but in reality, the disease was still there.

Looking into the mirror, she saw someone new, not the woman with the dull eyes and wry smile but a woman with a light dancing in her eyes, a glow on her face and a happy smile. It was like tons of stress had fallen off her mind and for the first time after the diagnosis, she felt free like a butterfly.
Time came close for her to leave, for her doctor’s appointment in New York awaited her.

At the cemetery she said to her Nani, “My desire to visit home, again, was fulfilled and I got to visit you, but I am not saying ‘goodbye’ for this disease is like a ticking bomb. One day we will be together again.”

She will tell her daughter, a doctor, that when it’s time that she lay her to rest next to her Nani and plant a pink rose for her.