GO WELL, DANI

I have been sitting on this couch for close to three hours now trying to figure out the pattern of death and I think I just came up with a postulation. Three hours in the cold of the night, with too much burden in the heart, sorrows clinging on. I am in lack for sleep and I cannot stop feeling sorry for myself then the only thing I can achieve from all that is a postulation which might also not be anywhere close to the facts surrounding death! In real sense I was looking for something real and factual, not anything less. I am weary. I feel like I am melting down to nothingness and the thoughts of death and how it has remained powerful and undefeated keep reminding me that I am just a minute, scared little creature that will never make it alive out of this world. I honestly feel pity for Scientists. Finding out facts and proving them is a depressing venture. If this is the kind of thing they go through almost every single day, then they sure do have too much energy and a load of patience that require a true calling.

Death has an unbearable way of reminding us that we deserve our own shares of pain and sadness every once in a while. I have had a smooth-running day, hand in hand with my son, moving from mall to mall, chewing jelly beans and scooping fro-yos after a hearty meal at one of those restaurants that keep calling you to spend your last one thousand shillings note on fried chicken and long strips of fries. At this moment I have a guaranteed feeling of elation and I could swear that nothing could ruin the moment, not even the hot blazing sun or the dusty streets. We have been moving round the city comfortably and demanding attention from high school baby lovers at the museum like we are some kind of attraction that are also a part of what they came in for, but then when the clock strikes four, all hell break loose.

I do not want to relate the abnormalities of the evening with the heartbreaking news of the night but superstitions always keep giving the beck. My son throwing up amid a book discussion session at 4pm not only gets me worried but also I cannot help myself from connecting it to something more terrible, a loss or something related to it. Something is definitely up and even though I do not want to bring myself to believe so, things are definitely not the same. At this point I am beginning to hate myself for being superstitious but then again I get to find out later on that I have been right and my worries have been relevant all along. Viewing my cousin’s post on a WhatsApp status is enough justification for those worries. My grandma has just passed away. After one hundred plus years of age. Even after that long and having lived my whole life knowing her, it still feels like she has gone too soon, surely no one is ever prepared to lose a loved one.

I want to get my mind off it. I am in search for fresh, good vibes. I just want to get up the next day, warm up, do some yoga and get the manicures and pedicures done, if possible. I want to concentrate on making myself pretty, bring my hair back to life and probably become a wonder woman in a day, after all, everything’s possible under the sun, right? I would like to brush off reality but it is already confirmed that I cannot escape the sorrows that death has caused me over the past few years. I could start counting from the past five years but I will save you the load and only mention the ones I lost from two years ago. My maternal grandpa, my Nice Pap', my maternal grand aunt and now my Nana.

Any woman has watched death take away the lives of their children has the full rights to label death a cruel monster . The pain they undergo is unimaginable and what it does to the body and soul cannot really be described in words, my grandma could attest to that. It crashes your spirits and trashes your hopes forever. Having to lay to rest not only one, two, three, four… but ten of your children is a nightmare that no one can wake up from, even if you have a heart made of titanium. It is one thing to lose a loved one but to lose a child is a totally different heart wrenching occurrence. She had been young when she had lost a child for the first time. She had fourteen of them, all in perfect health at the time of birth, a prolific woman indeed. Being an only wife to my grandpa meant that she had to possess the ultimate strength of a woman and be perfect at multitasking, thanks to her agility and open mindedness, she handled motherhood and wifehood quite well.

Getting married at the age of seventeen and bearing children as early as then was not unheard of during the time and she thought she was prepared for the task until marital problems started creeping in. She found herself traveling back to her parents’ home several times after marriage, no, actually, it was after my grandfather had eloped with her, the marriage had not been concealed yet but her people had consented to the union. The first time she had packed and left, her parents had welcomed her and later summoned my grandpa’s people to come ask for ng’uono, appease the in-laws and take back their wife. Grandma was then asked to prepare the most delicious brown ugali, osuga and fish to show that she had agreed to return. My grandpa’s people also came along with a male goat and five cans of busaa as gifts to the in-laws. The second time she returned and the preceding two times, her brothers forcefully took her back to her home until she learnt and got used to solving her own marital problems with her husband.

Nana always brought history close and made us understand more than what school gave us, she added more flesh and skin to it. The chants and the songs she taught us, some, even though in broken Swahili, made perfect sense when she fed them to our ears. Her community in Nyabondo had collaborated with the British missionaries and the leaders had even hosted a number of them, that is what we were taught at school but the part they never told us is that among the people of Nyabondo, a few had reacted against the collaboration, grandma was part of them. They created songs to show their resistance. One of those songs asked whatever happened to the Nyabondo people for them to welcome in strangers, the Waingereza, to their homeland. (Jo Nyabondo ang’o motimo uuu…?). The lyrics were shaky but the song was understandable. She was among the first women who spearheaded the Maendeleo na Wanawake women group in her region and that is where she built her skills in business.

The stories are sweet when you get them first hand from her own voice, that breathy sigh she releases at every pause, the hearty laughter, the voice that speaks of her old age, the nostalgia that it registers, her watery eyes and how they also speak the story, I will dearly miss that. She cautioned us every now and again and more so praised us every time we brought her gifts and cooked for her. She used to say we are good cooks and that she would never have to solve cases from in-laws raising complaints that we cannot prepare meals appropriately.

My grandma has lived a life of more sorrow than joy ever since she got to old age and lost half the number of her children. Having to bury the fruits of her womb ten times and also her husband before her own passing was not anything anyone can handle lightly. The losses she has undergone are massive and immeasurable but now that we lost her, we not only need to mourn but also to celebrate the long life that she lived and all the times she shared with us. She was a strong woman and just like everyone else, she had her own faults and weaknesses. I will remember her for the marks that she left in our lives. I will remember how religious she was and how orderly she liked to be. She respected other people’s privacy and craved for other people to respect hers. I shall remember that. I will miss her, nind gi kwe Nyasore, dhi gi kwe Nyo’minde. Abiro pari ahinya Dani.