Roses to Uncle Eddy

I still remember that dark Tuesday. 5.42 am was the time. I received a call from my younger uncle, Jamo.

“Jomba tulijaribu lakini Mungu alikua na mpango wake.Mjomba wako Wanjala ametuwacha.”

Since then, I have hated Tuesdays. The brown varnished casket shone under the midday sun. It bore the scent of wet paint, as does most new coffins. The man therein, pinned helplessly by the hands of death, was my beloved. Someone I had desperately loved in life. I didn't know, whether I loved or pitied him in death. 

For a long time, I stood, starring at his face. The skin had turned ashy, with little droplets of sweat. Curtained behind his delicately shut eyelids, were big, innocent eyeballs. His nose still stood, sharp. Why couldn't they breathe, at least one last time, for me? His lips were still alive. Full as they had been, in the many years we had known each other...

All these while, I was convinced my uncle was asleep. I knew he would wake up, in due time...

Then, the first lumps of soil did hit the coffin with an echo of finality. I remembered his last words, weak on the hospital bed. The pain that tore through me, knowing pretty well, I wasn't able to help him recover. He had told me, for one thing... 

                                                                                                                                        

"Khocha, always be kind ..."

Torrents of dry earth fell on his casket, waking me up from my journey of the good, gone, golden past. It dawned on me that he was gone... Gone to return not. I looked at the last edges of the coffin, six feet under... then, looked at my cousins he had left behind. This place will mark the beginning of a future that would never be the same. 

How does one learn to live without a father? How does one move on, knowing pretty well, they are forever going to bear the 'orphan' title? Where can one find another father? Couldn't time loan him life, a little longer?

There are people, places and things that we just must love, longer than forever. 

We love you, Khocha 

We love Paradise. 

We love the afterlife. 

Till we meet again, Rest in Peace.

Photo: Jane, uncle eddy's sister reads out a bible verse for the burial sermon.