My father
One afternoon, my husband picked me from school, and as we drove home, he softly said, “I talked to the family in Kenya a few hours ago and all is well.” He went silent for few minutes and said that muthee (an honorable title for old man in Gĩkūyū language) Chege had rested. I broke down sobbing.
I had visited Kenya in 1993 and had been in the US less than a year after returning. I had spent a lot of time with him. He had been separated from my mother and was living alone, so I had furnished his house. He made me porridge from the grains he grew in his yard garden. I was already dreaming about going back to spend more time with him and improve his living condition. Now that dream was shattered.
My visit to Kenya in 1993 had been aimed at spending time with my mother-in-law, who had had a stroke at the age 90. I spent nine months in the country, splitting my time between visiting her and spending time with my father, my mother, and the rest of the extended family members lived close to each other at the time.
I could not concentrate on my classes anymore, and although I dropped four courses, the university did not waive my fees. The school argued that since my father’s death was a sudden death and not prolonged illness, I was not overly stressed. I could not attend the funeral, and this compounded my grief. I did not have the relevant travel documents, and I could not risk coming back to my family in the U.S.
I did not know the difference between suffering from long term sickness and sudden death until my husband was sick for thirteen years. I was also diabetic, and I realized the difference. My father died in 1994 and was buried in a public cemetery at Gwagitambaya or Kwa Waira Farm in Ruiru, Kenya, where my brother had built his homes. My father lived in one of my brother’s homes.
I scored over one thousand points on the stresses-measurement tests, and I assume the stress gradually built up without my knowledge. Three years later I got kidney stones and E-coli infection, which put me in hospital for eight days, followed by several months of recuperation. I thought I was strong on grieving since I encouraged many in life who had same deaths in families. I had studied human live fro conception to death and have heard that at age between forty to fifty the significant people in family, a knowledge I thought would make me strong when my loved one dies. It was not so. I broke down. I thought my faith in God was enough to help from breaking down but I broke down. After all God was merciful for he lifted from deep stress and gave me power to continue life and from there was death of my mother which I feared how I will face.