To my brother, Jay

Preamble

A few days before the death of our brother, Mwita Maroa Sawi Maroa, despite being hopeful that he would come home to us, I had a nagging feeling that this time round, he would not make it out of hospital. 

With a heavy heart and with the hope that I would never have to share this post, I set out to express what I felt at the time. On a simple notebook in a private space, tears running down my eyes, I wrote, maybe to prepare myself  for the worst case scenario.

Jay did not pull through and I never read my notes again, until  this week.  He suffered a stroke, and was brain dead for a few days. He was kept on life support, just so that my siblings could see him one more time.

On 23rd March, after we had all gathered and said a prayer for him, the plug was pulled off . He went to be  with the Lord. It will be exactly a year tomorrow. In his memory, with a heavy heart and sobbing as I typed away, I set out to share the note...

Dear Mwita,

If I put up this post, you are probably gone. To where? I don’t know. This though is painful. It will be, for a long time. Somehow, we must get you out of hospital. We will take you to Ntimaru, then we will lay you to rest, next to Goko.

Inevitably, one day I will lie next to you at home, peacefully and undisturbed - in the quaint and dusty land of our people - where our hearts will always be. Home of Sawi and Nyangige. Home of Rioba and Sabheti. Home of Mukuria and Marwa.

A lifetime is all we have and yours, Jay, was a blessing.  You were a  gentle soul and a darn jolly good fellow. One day when your kids are grown, I will tell them that they had a good father; that he loved them deeply and that he cared a lot about them.

I will tell Rioba and Bhoke that their father was  a dreamer and that he lived a full and normal life. I will tell those munchkins that  few of us have had to deal with the condition that you had. That you did so with acceptance and relative good grace, to the very end.

I will tell them that you loved them, even when they screamed at the top of their voices. I will tell them that their Daddy thought about their future and that he would have liked to see them grow to adulthood and to succeed in everything that they did.

I will tell them that he cared, even worried sometimes about their Sokoro and their Goko, even more than he worried about himself. We worried about him too, never thinking that this day would come. It has been tough going, these past few days.

It has been especially tough for Tina, for Dad and for Mum. The going to hospital, the bleeding ulcers, the stroke, the oedema, the waiting,  having hope and losing it…The kids are clueless.  Some day, they will ask where their Dad is. A lifetime is all you had. It is all we have, really.

Begrudgingly and painfully, we will somehow carry on. We will take care of Tina for you. We will take care of Bhoke and Rioba like they are our children. We will take care of Dad and Mum, as you would have wanted us to do, and as we always have.

We have stuck together as a family and now we must do it for you, for your dear wife and for your beautiful children who have a lifetime ahead of them. We must also do it for Mum and for Dad who hurt deeply, for you. It will continue to hurt for the rest of our days, and not any less.

Jay, it’s surreal, even unreal. It is unbelievable, that after 42 years, against a lot of odds, it has all come to a sudden end. We will cry for you, thinking about what was, what is and what could have been. But we will also thank God for your beautiful life.

Your dearest brother,

Maroa.