By Abena Rockcliffe
Facing the future without the person with whom you planned it can be a tormenting venture, especially if you never dared to fathom any other reality. But this is the predicament being faced by a young widow, Makala Bascom.
Michael was her high school sweetheart. She entered womanhood with his feet planted firmly by her side. She chose to marry him and started a family. Theirs was a love admired by friends and relatives. The intention was to grow old together. But the story of Michael and Makala Bascom tragically ended on August 14, 2023, when Michael, 34, tragically lost his life in an accident.
For the first time in well over a decade, Makala observed her birthday (October) without him, “that was hard.” But even harder is navigating the Christmas season without Michael to whom she still refers as “my baby”.
Michael was a man of the season, and being that his birthday was Christmas Eve, the Bascoms had much to celebrate at this time of the year.
But now, it is different. For Makala, the world was colourful, and Michael was always viewed as one of the brightest colours. But since she lost him, her world seems to have become black and white. So much colour remains, and all the other people who contributed to the aesthetic of her world remain, but Makala is failing to appreciate all the other decorations because of her missing center piece.
To the ordinary man, this might seem selfish or myopic. But those who have experienced loss and those who are capable of empathy may find it easier to understand the state of this young widow’s heart. Especially so when consideration is given to the fact that Makala spent more of her life with Michael than without.
Since she was a teen, Makala, now 30, spent her time juggling everyday life while getting to know and learning to love the man with whom she thought she was going to grow old.
As Alicia Keys famously iterated, teenage love affairs are the best.
The two met when Makala was still in high school, and Michael was fresh out of his.
The Caribbean Healthy Lifestyle Project (CHLP), a for youth-by-youth programme, of which Michael was a member, had its end of year gift drive at Mildred Mansfield Youth Club (formerly Dorcas Club), Durban Street. Being the man of the season he was, Michael volunteered to share gifts. It was at that event that he met his wife, who accompanied her neighbour and her son to the event.
It turned out that Makala’s neighbour was Michael’s half-sister, Latoya. She made the introduction, and so the courtship began.
The two successfully navigated the initial constraints that are typical for a young couple and eventually became inseparable.
“We spoke a lot on the phone. Mom used to quarrel, wanting to know what we had to talk so much.”
Initially, Makala told her mom, “…is my friend and I enjoy talking to him.” But with the passage of time, Makala became so sure that she wanted to be with Michael that she found the courage to tell her mom, “I want him to be my boyfriend.”
That conversation with her mom was fruitful, and Michael was allowed to start visiting her home. “But he used to have to stay on the staircase outside. He didn’t mind.”
Makala recalled that Michael had been in the habit of spoiling her since then. “He used to take his lil stipend and spend it behind me. Gave me money for school and so on.”
Michael later migrated to Trinidad to live with his cousin/foster brother, Ato. But that change in circumstance did not break the two. Their hearts grew fonder as absence sometimes tend to provoke. And the talking continued. Makala recalled that Michael’s aunt/ foster mom, Joycelyn, used to furnish her with phone cards to call him. “We didn’t have WhatsApp in those days. So, I used phone cards. But those $500 phone cards would finish fast sometimes. We used to have to keep our calls short.”
When Makala completed her secondary education, she was given the opportunity to visit Michael in Trinidad. “It was a beautiful experience,” said a reminiscing Makala.
Soon enough, she had to return home and was plunged into the world of work. Makala started to gain her independence and juggled that, her other responsibilities and a few bouts of entertainment here and there.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, someone saw her at a fete in the National Park dancing with some bloke and that person embellished that scene and fed the information to Michael who was so consumed by love that he felt he needed to return to Guyana to save his marriage which didn’t exist at the time.
At the time, Michael and Ato were enjoying the benefits of a thriving catering business in Trinidad. Michael was the main man as he was an exquisite chef. Ato had just invested in some more materials to enhance the business, but none of that mattered. Michael dropped everything and returned home to Makala, whom he fondly called “Kayla.”
Even as Ato pleaded with him to consider the investment, Micheal quipped, “I got to go back to me oman bro, is me oman.”
He returned to Guyana in late 2011, and by 2012, he left living with his own family to live with Kayla and hers.
“A night he came back us, and dropped to sleep in the chair. I asked Herms (her mom) for him to go inside and sleep in the bed. Then, he started sleeping over often until he moved in.”
The widow recalled the absolute bliss she felt living under the same roof with Michael. “It was a happy time. He wasn’t a person who would say that you have to change this or that. He allowed me to be me. I could have gone anywhere with my friends and family, unrestricted. It is only after we got Kyra (their three-year-old daughter) that things really had to change because, well, now I have a big responsibility.”
After many years living together, the two decided to officially commit themselves to each other before God and man. Initially, they had planned to tie the knot in 2016 but decided to postpone the wedding because his grandma, Jennifer couldn’t come then.
Eventually, “all the stars aligned” and the two wedded in 2018.
“He didn’t really like celebrating his birthday, but he was excited to celebrate anything else. He kept parties for all of our daughter’s three birthdays. He really liked a celebration.” Their love was no different, and what better way to celebrate your love than to bless it before God and legalize it in the eyes of man? Naturally, the two had a big celebration in honor of their nuptials. “Our wedding was beautiful,” Makala recalled.
She said that marriage life continued in the same vein as when they were living common law. “He didn’t change. He continued being the same man I loved. Like I said, he is never a person to dictate to me. Life continued with the same bliss. I never had to cook or make breakfast. All I had to do was wash and clean. He handled the food, and he loved doing so. I miss him so much.”
Makala said she took her vows seriously, and all of her was willing to stick with her husband for better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, and health. In those short five years of marriage, she experienced all those seasons. But it never prepared her for the last line of the vows, “until death do us part.”
Ready or not, life happens.
Makala recalled that Michael suffered from migrains and would often say, “this head will kill me.” He even did an MRI but never went for the results.”
As fate would have it, Michael died on the spot due to head injuries from the accident, in the same way his mother did when he was only four years old.
Makala said that hardly ever a day goes by without her recalling the events of August 14.
Imagine being stuck in a dark room with only a tv set to replay the worst day of your life. Well, it is similar to that; only difference is that Makala’s dark room is now called everyday life where even with the benefit of distractions, she cannot escape seeing her husband’s lifeless body falling out of the vehicle as it was lifted.
“When he was leaving that morning, he said, ‘when you miss me, I gone.’ I spoke to him later in the day, and he said he passed home to pick up something and was headed back out. I asked him to pick me up from work lunchtime. I called, and he said he was on his way to me.
“But a long time passed, and he wasn’t there. So, I called him. His phone rang out. I then called Stephon (her cousin, who was with Michael at the time), and he told me. Stephon answered and said ‘Kayla Michael just dead.’ I told him to stop talking madness, and he asked me why he would joke about that and hung up the phone.”
Makala said that when she kept calling back both phones. When Stephon eventually answered again, he told her to take a car to the scene of the accident.
“I felt like I was going out of my head, I still feel like that sometimes.” Michael’s “handsome” face was badly disfigured, beyond recognition to the extent where a closed casket funeral was necessary.
The widow still cannot explain how she managed to stand to view his postmortem. But she vowed that that image is not what comes to her mind whenever she thinks of her true love. “I always remember his handsome face, not the way it was when he died. Sometimes, I would just stare at his picture and cry.” She recalls putting on his socks the day of his funeral and “his feet felt alive. It was just a little cold, but it felt as real as when I used to put on his socks for him to go to work.”
Here it was, the feet that stood beside her in those confusing teenage years, the feet that stood beside her as she turned a woman, the feet that stood beside her at the alter before God, was now still.
Makala recalled trembling to put on his socks, knowing that that would be the last time she held his feet.
Even now, as she is meant to focus on herself and the daughter they shared, Kayla cannot help but miss Michael with literally every beat of her heart. “I miss him all the time, especially around now. He loved Christmas he would always get me excited. And he did all the cooking.”
“Christmas will never be the same. I just want the season to be over with,” said a teary Makala. She knows it is unfair to Kyra, who is also grappling with missing her dad. “But I am having a hard time. Kyra does not fully understand what happened. She only knows she misses her dad. But I know I will never see him again.”
Kayla said that even though she wants to celebrate the season for the sake of her daughter, It feels impossible to celebrate Christmas in a world where Michael no longer exists.
She has a wealth of memories, she has videos of his jolly and funny self, and she has his clothes all packed up the same “but I don’t have him.” The widow says her best days now are those that follow nights when she sees him in her dream.
She said that she had a dream where she told him that she wanted to hug him “and just then, he opened his hands to hug me. We hugged and the next day I was so happy.”
Makala recalls a song that she always felt characterized their relationship, Holding You Down, by Jlo and Fat Jo. The lyrics resonated because she knew that the two of them were always there for each other, right or wrong. They held each other down. But nowadays, the song that resonates is Distance Between Us by Fleetwood Mac.
She really feels as if there is rain on her window, as the song says. Even though some believe it is time for her to move on, Makala is not remotely ready to accept that she has lost her life partner.
She said, “He was a lovely man. He was stubborn, and he didn’t manage his money properly. But other than that, I would say he was perfect.”
Like the last line in their wedding song, This is why I love you, “I have found love in you and no other love will do.” At least that is how she feels for now
A good father and husband, an exquisite chef, a hard worker, and a provider, that is how she chooses to remember her dear Michael today, Christmas. Makala believes she will remember him the same way tomorrow and forever until death or memory loss. He was her friend, lover, and confidant. Not even death can change that.
