My grandmother said goodbye in stages, and the last stage was always the road.
Whenever we left the village she walked us out — first to the gate, where she remembered a thing to give us, a bunch of sukuma, a bottle of milk still warm. Then to the end of the lane, where she remembered a thing to say. Then, though her knees were bad and everyone begged her to stop at the lane, to the junction, where the tarmac started and the matatus passed.
There she would stand. And here is the thing I only understood later: she did not wave as we went. She waved as we grew small. My mother explained it once. In her day, on these roads, a person who left did not always arrive. So you did not wave your child toward the danger. You held the road with your eyes until it gave your child back to the horizon safely, and only then did you turn home, and you never let them see you turn.
I used to watch her through the back window, shrinking, one hand up, until the road curved and took her. I always faced forward again too quickly. I was going somewhere. She was only staying.
She is buried now at the edge of the shamba where she can see the lane. When I visit I do the whole walk in reverse — junction, lane, gate — and it takes no time at all, and this is the loneliest part, how short it is without her remembering things to give me.
Last month I took my own daughter to the city bus. I meant to be modern about it, a quick hug, go well. But my feet carried me past the gate, past the lane, to the junction, and there I stood, and I did not wave her toward the bus. I waved her small. I held the road until it curved. And only when it had given her safely to the distance did I turn, quickly, so the woman I have become would not see the girl I was, still standing there, still being left.