In one of
his epic songs, Jimi Hendrix sings: “The night I was born, Lord I swear the
moon turned a fire-red.” He was too little to know, of course, what kind of
moon there was that night. But his folks might have told him, years after the
fact. More likely, it was an imagined night.
Kwach was
born in the morning, and died in the night. I don’t know what kind of sky Thika
had that fateful night.
He was born on
September 16, 1983, under the watchful eyes of doctors and nurses, who carried
out a cesarean section at Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi. He spent his first three
days on this earth in an incubator, to fight off a touch of jaundice.
He died with
massive injuries to the head, trapped for hours in a car, alone, as Kenya
celebrated Obama’s landing. The driver and second passenger, who survived, had
long been admitted to hospital. It took the effort of the Fire Brigade to free
his lifeless body. A body without life is still the body of someone we should, as a collectivity, know and feel for.
No, I am not
celebrating Kwach’s death. This is a mourning moment, and a loss. I am not
telling myself that he is in a better place. I am devastated by his going. I wanted
him to be in this place – to keep walking this earth and overcoming adversity and
realizing his dreams, as they evolved – till he was in his eighties or, better
still, nineties. The unconditional acceptance of death (of loss of life), regardless of circumstance, is an example of extreme, even morbid, despair.
I wanted him
to be here with his siblings and friends and his own family, and to live and
grow old with and like his peers, long after his mother and I were gone.
That’s what
parents dream for their children, and so for themselves. You don’t nurture them
with all that tender loving care for this kind of horror.
That’s what human progress promises. Yet he died at the hands of the very sort of technology that progress delivers, and that delivers progress.
That’s what human progress promises. Yet he died at the hands of the very sort of technology that progress delivers, and that delivers progress.
I know that millions
and millions of parents have, throughout human history, endured and continue to suffer the fate that
has now befallen us, and worse.
I know that
from the facts. I just don’t want to accept the facts right now; because this
is personal, not statistical. This is flesh and blood, not human history. Not trending news.
The morning that news
of his death reached our house, Chikka, my only daughter, rushed into the bedroom
where I had gone to change, screaming: “Daddy, Daddy, we have lost Kwach!” And
she told me, amid the sobs, “Sorry.” I imagine she sensed what Kwach’s loss must
mean to me, the father. I was sorry for her too, and saddened by her
indescribable anguish. A tragedy of unfathomable magnitude had found its way
into our closely-knit and reasonably secure house.
I understand that since Kwach
died, his paternal grandmother (Ny’Opeyo) has cried desperate tears for her first grandson, who is
also her father.
We are, all
of us, stardust, still. We are specks of impossibly distant things of light such
as we see twinkling in the heavens on cloudless nights. Things which, where we
will bury Kwach, I have had the sensation as a younger man that you could reach
up with your very own stretched hands and grab a handful of. Theology talks of “Earth
to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, but, like Kwach, we are only partly of this earth.
The
outpouring of emotion that Kwach’s passing has wrought has reinforced the
thought that the twinkling is not the property solely of distant stars, but of certain
specks of dust right here on earth, too. Such as Kwach.
We are, all
of us, stardust, KWACH.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S.
1. You may also wish to READ THIS.
2. ADDED (Aug 20, 2015): Hear Kwach's voice, doting on his daughter (Video taken on Nov 7, 2013)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S.
1. You may also wish to READ THIS.
2. ADDED (Aug 20, 2015): Hear Kwach's voice, doting on his daughter (Video taken on Nov 7, 2013)
