BEFORE SHE FLIES

Solitude.

You ever walked the shores of a lake,an ocean or a sea alone?The loneliness in your heart pulls a chair,sits down and start a conversation.

Solitude can kill you.
It can mess your system real bad.There is a language that solitude speaks.It is an evil language,it shouldn't be spoken.Solitude engulfs you and your knuckles are never the same,you feel it in your fingers forever like it is written in the tablets of your heart.You know what is worse than having solitude written in the tablets of heart?
It is solitude itself.
I have tasted this.And boy does it taste bad.Like Pilau made by a Kikuyu,you know the type that has pumpkin and butternut and it is still Pilau?That one.
It never is the same again.It stays forever.Solitude is a female dog.I'd have used the other word but I am about to write about my Mother.

She could strangle the words out of me if I did.

14 was my craziest year,any man will tell you they never had the idea of navigating 14,they still don't.There are these changes that are happening to you,good changes and bad ones,you are growing pubes,you don't even know what to do with them.At 14 you notice girls and their breasts and their small hips,the small of their backs.

Heck!whoever created 14.

But what will mess your ribs up is not puberty,it is not growing chest hair,it is not breaking your voice.It is the loss of your mother.It is like a bad kiss,it stays in your mouth forever.

That is the real solitude.

Yes,your mother will die one day and with that your heart will never be repaired.Mothers are heroes,they are like battle charged generals,they are waging war,and in a war,they are likely to cross the divide.They will die.And you?You'll lose your marbles.

I had not seen her cry,she was stoic.Wambui was something else.I used to call her Mama Lucy,she was bad news,when you were on the wrong you better had crammed your Bible verses well,for her house would be a court and that would have simply been your judgement day.She was a totalitarian in discipline a woman with the guts of Orie Rogo Manduli

So,I only saw here cry twice.

The first day,was a few weeks before her eventful crossing over.She was taken ill.Her hair was falling off.Wambui loved her head.She was the first woman I took to the salon,and every week I dutifully followed her there,because when your mother goes to make her hair,the world must stop.Her salon sessions were a church services and I obligedly followed the sermons-without complain.

She was sweating profusely that day,perhaps on the gravity of the load she was leaving behind.She didn't  just see the idea of her leaving us(Me and Njoki)behind.

I was a hormone charged,confused, young and defiant teenager.I wanted to defy her impending odeal.

You cannot cheat death.

You just can't.And badly so, you can't cheat the death of your mother.When she flies,she is a bird.She just flies and that is it.

That day broke my heart,I have never cried as much,she kept telling me that men are strong,that they don't cry like women,the thing about the death of your mother is that,it makes you a woman.It makes you cry.It breaks your heart.Your mother is your number one woman,she calls the shots.Adds winds to your sails.You will cry and you will not care being called a woman.

Your number one woman will crush you in ways beyond comprehension.

And so that day she was taken to the hospital,she left a thick air in our house,the silence again pulled a seat.

Effin gobsmerking.

The eejit that is the silence and/or solitude chokes you.It stays in your throat.When you are defenceless,when you cannot protect the woman you love the most from macabre-ish happenings.

God knows I'd have chosen me over her,when the grim ripper came.

A week later I saw her cry-again.

Her tears,burnt my fingers.But the sorrow is what set my heart ablaze.Her hair thin,her crown ripped off.Her heart shuttered.She wanted to talk,she wanted to say something,maybe,

"don't cry my son,I'll get outta here."

Yes Wambui could have said "outta here" in 2004 she was cool like that.

She didn't.Get out of there.
Her burning tears fell on my small hands.The sound!Deafening,they dropped so  heavily,everyone from bed 12 to the entire hospital hall heard their fall.BEFORE SHE FLIES

I looked at her,she looked away.She never wanted me to see her cry,it was a cardinal sin in the bible of her life.Her strength was her religion.We worshiped there like devout saints.We bowed at how strong a woman Mama Lucy was.I cried.My mother made me a woman that day.A proud woman-for the woman I will never be able to replace.Wambui.

Njoki wasn't here with us,something to do with kids not being allowed to hospitals and that brouhaha.

What madness?Her mother flew before she ever called her "mom".My heart will never move on from that.

And so the visiting hours were over,the nurse came for my neck.I swear I haven't forgiven that woman.I don't think I will.

I left.

Can you hear the pulpable silence?

Can you  see my never drying tears?

Yes?

I went home.Not a single word from my woman.

Before she flies,she is silent.

Nothing had prepared me for this.No man is prepared for this.

Not even Hitler.

And that 12th day of December 2014,she flied.

Wambui gave in to something even stronger than her stocism,something countless than the tears she cried.

Something boistorous.Something immoral.

She gave up to death.

With all her strength,all her stoicism and  all her love

As Kenyans went to celebrate liberation on Jamhuri Day,my heart and that of my 1 year old sister got incarcerated.

Life for all we knew would never be the same.

The cruelty with death,it not only breaks your heart it ensures it becomes irriparable.

Hordes of people came,friends and family.And then that question-which is still by my standards the most useless in the history of questions asked to a 14 year olds that just lost their mother..

"are you ok?"

I wanted to say no,but can you have words to express some things?When your mother dies in silence,you don't have words to express your feelings.Your throat blocks,your word bank runs bankrupt.

Your mother will fly but before she flies,she takes with her your words.She leaves you wordless,but most devastatingly-motherless.

And for that one week she lay in the morgue,I was numb of words,I was berieved of speech.Njoki cried.I cried.

Everyone did.They lost a friend a sister and a relative.We lost Mama Lucy

I failed in keeping track of events that one week.

Between 12th Sunday and 21st Tuesday,I visited hell daily.

What I recall 12 years later,is that scene in hospital-that Sartuday,Grim.

When your mom flies,she never comes back.The day she does, never is the same.

I'd graduate with my first bachelors same day 11 years later.

But she'd already acquired wings.She flied.

Before she flies be nice to her.

Mama Lucy.