I first met him when I was about ten years old. An old man even then, and that was a decade and a half ago. Two years later he moved into our house and lived with us for the next thirteen years.
He was a sight to behold, for he never wore shoes. But that was not half of it- he wore a ‘kaptula’ for the entire time I knew him which when I was younger intrigued me to no end.
A snuff box was always at his side and woe unto any guy who propositioned me and came to our house. If you didn’t buy snuff, you were probably too stingy and in effect, not good enough for me in his eyes.
He was a constant in my life, the kind-in a mathematical equation- that can be depended upon to not change. Through boarding school, both primary and high school, he was always constant that should I come home unexpectedly, everyone might not be there but he would be.
He encouraged me, argued with me, sang with me, laughed with me, supported me. Sometimes he got angry with me. But mostly, I remember that he counselled me, and prayed for me and blessed me in the characteristic spit upon his wrinkled chest. He spoke blessings upon me and praised me. He loved me.
As I write this, tears are running down my face and am choked by emotion, for I realize how much I miss him. I saw him last, this past June, on Madaraka day. He is unwell, and i have forced him to eat because he won’t. I tug on his arm and help him sit up and I realize just how weak he is. I spoon food into his mouth and threaten to not talk to him(he hated that) if he doesn’t eat. He tries, it exhausts him. All he wants to do is to lie down and rest. I leave early next morning without seeing him, shouting goodbye at the door.
Ten days later, my mother calls me early,its six in the morning to tell me the news. He has gone to rest at 88 years of age.
I go home and its not the same anymore, my constant is gone. He is laid to rest a week later and the living return to the business of living.
But I know my family will never go back.For my parents, my siblings and I, this is a new way, different altogether.
He had never married but he adopted all of us into his heart as we did adopt him into ours. My parents were the children he never had and we, my siblings and I, the grandchildren.
He adored my mother. I remember him once, saying that if my mother left our house, there’d be nothing left for him to do but take a rope and hang himself. Such was the intensity of his affections.
Its two months later today, I have gone home to visit. I stand at the door of the room he always occupied. I cannot bring myself to go in. Nothing’s changed, even the bed is not stripped. I look for shadows where there are none. I go to his grave and stand there and my thoughts fly away.
My father passes me by, he does not say a word. My sister passes by too, and she too says nothing.
Each one of us hurts, each of us blindly looking, forging a way ahead. We never mention him though we all want to.
At the grave side, I talk hoping he’ll hear. Maybe now he understands English. I pat the soil as I leave his final resting place with heavy thoughts, wondering.
Have I touched somebody’s life? Someone not obligated to me? Will somebody come to my grave, months maybe years later and cry for me? Not necessarily my children ,no. But people whose lives and mine intertwined, with whom we lived and loved, cared and shared, while being true to ourselves?
I write this for me, for my therapy, since am told it helps to talk about it.
But most of all, its a tribute to a man that lived and died, and loved and cared for me, for my family.Who could have lived in a lot of places but chose us. A man that poured out his all and gave it to my family.
This is an ode to kindness.
