My heart still bleeds, Dad!

Dear Babaa,

How are you? How is heaven treating you? It is exactly two years today (21st Jan 2016) since you left us to a place better than here. That is a day that will forever ache my heart.I know you are in pain no longer, but it still breaks my heart to uncountable pieces that you are not here with us. I miss you so much Babaa. You used to say, I was good with words, but no, when it comes to you, I am devoid of any. It is my heart. It is the feeling and knowledge that no man alive will ever love me the way you did. That no man alive will ever be so proud of me, and call out my name like you did. That your gentle ways and your most genuine smile I remain to see only in your photos and the magical memories. Oh dad I miss you so much.

Dad you lied. Do you remember how you would bring tree seedlings and make us plant them as you claimed you would sit under the trees with your future grandchildren years to come? Yes you lied. When you said you would give me away only at the altar? Dad you lied. When you called me a scholar and said you would be there to hug me tight when I was declared Prof. Nasubo Wananyanga? Dad you lied. For where are you now? The trees have not enough branches yet to even shield the chickens from the sweltering rays of the sun. I am not even halfway that dream journey you dreamed for me.

I miss  you so much Babaa. Oh when it is so bad and I let the tears flow,all I  see is your smile and your voice saying, Nasubo Mamaa. When I go home, sometimes just for a comforting three seconds I forget that you will not be there to receive me. Remember how you wouldn’t leave the house till I had arrived safe and sound? I miss that. For four years of high school you personally got the bus ticket for me and you or mom would only give it at the bus door.No dad, I am not crying right now, these drops on my keyboard are not tears. What? I am not wiping my eyes. See? You are lying again. I am just touching my face and my hand? I have totally no idea why it drips wet.

Thank you Babaa for the beautiful life you enabled us. Oh I live for the memories of you. We live for them. Every time we your family are together you always bring yourself along. We will never know how you feel about how we make fun of the things you used to do. We do it because that way we don’t get so sad. Do you remember how you in the mornings on weekends you would brush your teeth for ages while walking around the compound and the whole farm? Funny is nobody saw you rinse your mouth with water after. All that brushing we know you didn’t have to.No? Now that was love for your milk white teeth, you win! Shirlyn your lovely grandchild is four. She walks around with her toothbrush some mornings too in her pajamas, we do not blame her. She does it so seriously we laugh.

God has been good to us. He continues to help us. You must talk to him for us too for many are the days we say ;Dad would have been very happy. I can relate even the tiniest experiences to you and what you would do. I laugh when I remember how you would send for water to take tablets with and by the time the water arrived, you would have swallowed it all already and even ask if you  had asked for it at all. Well I am gladly reporting that nobody does that. Everyone still hates medicine. Sorry dad.

Why darkness? How you hated the dark.You wanted lights on before it was even dark enough. Yes, that we say. When it is dark, everyone asks ‘Why darkness?’ See how you would ask about something you already knew so nicely, so calmly,Just so you would catch us try to lie? My Boss does it like you. It is not funny dad. Have you any idea how hard it is to maintain a straight face in such a situation? I laugh in my heart and try my best not to see your face.

Why or how you always found out that my HELB loan was in my account before I did beats me. Do you remember that day I told you ‘Babaa, tunafungua shule Friday.’…you were silent a while then you asked ‘nikupatie funguo?’…even your absence has never stopped them making the same fun they made of me that day, these your children. The one that we remember most about long texts to you is how you would reply with one word : NOTED! Then few minutes later that cash that had been asked for with so many words would be sent. Sometimes we wonder if you ever read them till the end, for the reply NOTED was never really appropriate for some of them. Oh Dad!

How is it you never told me while you still lived that cold left over chicken and cold milk taste like heaven in the morning. I would have kept you company you know.I will never forget the number of Sundays we caught you in the act , or found evidence much later when we woke up. You would just smile finish it and go your business. I try it sometime. Can you imagine people wonder where I got my appetite from? It is truly laughable.

Well dad, we have maintained your flowers like you loved them. Your trees as you left them, mummy makes us do as you made us. Oh you know how we love her. Nobody would ever go against her. How she prays makes us think you two really talk one on one. That unlike I who only writes and dwell on my monologues, you actually converse with her.We are making up for any of the times we let you down by making you and her proud.

Dad it has not been easy. It will never be the same again.I do not know how today would be if you were still here. I never understood grief until I lost you. The pain of losing  a loved one, is you. I am still working on how to be at a funeral and not see you in that coffin and I am not doing so well at it. Do you know that everyone of us was told to be strong for the other so much that we had to mourn secretly sometimes at your funeral? Oh some relatives you got there.

If today,a man, alive, walked up to me and said he were my dad I would tell him to go the road he came. You Babaa are the dad I would want back over and over again. I will love you forever, for in my hear you dwell for eternity.

Eternal rest grant to my dear father’s soul oh God and let your perpetual light shine upon him, may he rest in peace. Amen.

In loving memory of Moses Filbert Okumu Wananyanga (Daktari) 12/12/1960-21/1/2014.