Mourning: When it Hurts So Bad!

Amunga F. Baby!

Every time I come to write on my blog, I feel different. Sometimes I feel like a superstar, sometimes I feel like a proud aunt, sometimes I feel like a tour guide but today I feel like a politician. I feel like a politician because this is the one place I come once in a while–not as regularly as I should. This is the place that I make promises that I don’t keep. One such promise is the promise to post regularly. God knows my heart desires to do so, but life happens.

From reading my blog you may know that I have had my fair share of “life happens”. I come from a very small family comprising of my Dad, Mum, Me, My sister and My brother. I lost my Mum and I also lost my brother. When such things happen to you, you see life differently. So, growing up I didn’t see the need to do many things that people do. I couldn’t be bothered to party a lot, I didn’t have the time to be in relationships because I kept thinking there is more to life. If I thought something was vain, I did not give it another second of my time. I found myself gravitating more towards making meaningful relationships with people. People that were there for me when I was going through these tough seasons. That was my thing. And loving my family like it was the last thing I had.

To survive these seasons, you need a support group. People that can be your friends. Friends that you can call just to cry, friends that you can tell that you are feeling really crappy. Friends that can pray for you. Friends that can distract you by making you laugh. Friends that bring back the sunshine. The interesting thing about a support group is that you don’t choose it. It chooses you. These friends offer to be there for you. They check up on you, they pray for you and they love you out of their own volition. Their intentions are pure. They just want to see you back to living your life. They don’t sympathize with you, they empathize. They feel the pain with you till you are ready to be pain free.

I have one such friend. His name is Silas. We call him Cylo. We met through a friend and our friendship grew steadily. We became close when my brother was ill in the days that led up to his death. He would always check up on me, to find out how my brother was doing, to share a word of encouragement. In the days that I felt like the sun has never shone, he would make very silly jokes and even if just for a fraction of a second, I would laugh again, and enjoy life again. We went through it all. Sickness. There is a time I was very sick and was admitted in hospital. There was a time he was sick and admitted in hospital. But we lived to tell the story. Even bad relationships. We laughed ourselves silly about them and we always hoped for the day we would both meet the people who would make us happy. And find them we did. They were such good friends with my boyfriend. We got to hang out all of us severally. He even hosted us in Zanzibar and we had a time of our life!

My friend Cylo is no more. He died very suddenly two weeks ago after a short illness. We buried him one week ago. I feel like I had an out of body experience because the exact details of what happened on the day of his burial are sketchy in my mind. I can’t believe he is gone. I have cried then some. I have cried in the bus, on the road, in the office, EVERYWHERE. When the tears start rolling, there is no way of stopping them. I can’t understand why it happened. I can’t seem to get comforted. I can’t even pray. I feel like the ground that I stand on has shifted suddenly. My whole world is spinning. I’m back to wondering what is the point of it all. Don’t ask what “it” is, because even I don’t know. Why did my friend have to go so soon? Before we had attended his lavish wedding in Zanzibar? ? He will not be there to be an uncle to my kids. I will not be an aunt to his “pointy” kids. Why did he die before we toasted to living? To finally seeing our dreams come true? Who will be my brother? Why didn’t he tell the angels to come back another time?

Losing someone is the one thing that completely defeats me. Every time I have lost a loved one, my life stops for a moment–the annoying thing is that it only stops for me but continues for everyone else. Life loses it flavor as fear sets in. Fear of the unknown. The fickleness of life becomes so real. Now you are here, the next minute you are gone. I’m reminded that life has no guarantees. I have no idea how to deal with grief except wait it out. Wait for time to heal the pain that tears me inside. When I go to the Bible to look for answers to this pain, I get comforted by the fact that God Himself knows the pain of death. I say God because Jesus is God. John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” This is after he was told his friend Lazarus was dead. Jesus wept because He was moved by compassion for His friends Mary and Martha. Every time I feel like I’m not strong, I’m reminded of his parents, fiancée, his two sisters and two brothers. My heart goes out to them. I pray that God would listen to their heartache and heal them the way only He can.

I don’t even think this post is enough to get everything I feel off my chest. I will be back to write for that person who will be faced by grief and won’t know who to talk to, what to do when s/he can’t sleep at night because s/he is afraid that if s/he closes her eyes s/he might die. I will be back to write for that person who has drained everyone around them for talking about the loss of her/his loved-one too much. I will be back to write for that person who wants to ask God so many questions but is afraid to ask because God should never be questioned. I will be back to tell them that I too felt this way when I lost: My mother. My brother. My friend–Silas Amunga J. Namale.

Yeah, I just said that!

Photo credits: David Mutua

Ps. I thank me bebe for his exceptional support during these very trying times. I know we share the loss.

Pps. This blog mourns the loss of one of it’s faithful readers. Check out Cylo’s (aka Janeko) blog here

Pps. This dance will always make me laugh. He invented the damn dance! He was a fun guy, so full of life. *drum rolls* I present the Odiero dance.

2012

07/10

POSTED BY

Shekyn

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Amunga F. Baby
grief
Janeko
Janeko dance
Loss of a loved one
Mourning
Odiero dance
Silas Amunga J Namale

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