Running with my uncle… the final run

The day started as normal as any other Sunday.  Corona was still doing its rounds, with global infections standing at 194,576,971 and 4,171,656 deaths, while Kenyan numbers were 196,745 and 3,849 respectively.  The cold July weather remained cold.  I have believed that I have developed a ‘thick skin’ and can walk around with a Tshirt, but today’s chill was just too much forcing me to put on a jacket.

The day would take a turn around ten, when I switched on my gadgets and soon the messages started popping up.  I got the usual alert about some machines at the workplace switching on after a nightlong sleep.  I would be getting another such message when they go off in the evening.  There were two I-tried-to-call-you type of messages from one unknown number.  There was a thank you note from someone who had just received an item that I had sent.  And just when I thought that it would be all good, there was a final message that was short and to the point… Uncle Gilbert died

Those three words would set the day into a different trajectory.  The supposedly good day had just been dampened.  The day become colder that I had imagined.  That jacket that has travelled over 10,000km could not contain the cold of the day, thought it tried.  I walked to the workplace unsure of whether to do the now customary Sunday run or to just sit within a warm heated office and forget about the torture of running through the sub-10 degrees temperatures.

Custom won and I found myself changed and ready to do the Sunday run.  I had a meeting scheduled for three, hence I decided to start my run early to enable me to be back and ready for that meeting.  I had intended to start the run at noon, but I found myself taking the first step at 12.15pm.  The once feel-good mood had now been damped with reflections and memories.

I was running on the same old route from Uthiru to Ndumbo, then to Lower Kabete road, before diverting to Mary Leakey school, then crossing through the University farm to emerge at Kanyariri road for the 8km loop then back straight to Ndumbo and back to Uthiru.

I was lost in thoughts even as I went round the circle-of-churches just off Waiyaki way as I headed to Ndumbo after about fifteen minutes of run.  I could hear the mixture of drumbeats from the different iron sheet church structures, each doing their thing oblivious of the neighbour.  I could hear chants and prayers.  I could hear songs and apparent dancing.  I could hear preaching and speaking-in-tongues.  I was marveling at how the various churches operating in different languages, doing different church activities, and being as loud as they are, were really surviving each other.

The collection of church noises would soon be gone as I now joined Kapenguria road and soon passed Ndumbo with its matatu madness, even witnessing the matatu that was reversing onto the road and almost knocked a saloon car coming from behind.  The matatu did not have any care or concern, despite passersby shouting in fear.  I was past that in a moment.

It would then hit me this Uncle Gilbert had died.

‘Uncle’ as I had known him was a smart gentleman.  I knew him as a sharp dresser despite his advanced age.  I would get him in a tie in the few occasions that we met.  He kept reminding me that I was his favourite nephew.

“When I see you, I see my late sister,” he always reminded me in the manner of greetings whenever we met.

“You even look like my sister Leocadia,” he would continue, “Ayi, yawa!  However killed that my sister shall also be killed by the worst death ever,” he would continue to lament, his once smiling face now serious.  His grip on my hand still tight.  He would continue with the nostalgia and keep that curse going for a moment, before he would come back to the normal world.

“Okewa!  My nephew!  My favourite nephew,” he would continue.  He would normally get into this trance for about ten minutes, then he would be back to normal and he would release his grip and let me be.

I did not know my mother much.  I probably did not know my mother at all.  She died when I was about nine, while in class three.  I do not remember much about her.  I cannot describe her much.  I cannot draw her from personal experiences.  I wish I could have been old enough to know her well and to have memories that I can hold on to.  I only remember her through some two black one white photos that I saw about thirty year later, when my father passed on.  These photos were unveiled as part of the eulogy preparation.  

In one photo there is a lady who is quite young, in military uniform, but without a cap.  This is a passport size photo.  The other photo is a group photo, with my father on one extreme end while my mother is on the other extreme end.  Seated between them are four boys.  One small one, probably seven or eight is me, so I am told.  I can hardly recognize him.  That photo has both my parents in military uniforms, including caps.  My father has the impression of a tough commander, just by his facials.  My mother on the other hand looks so polite, so down to earth.  It was therefore ‘uncle’ who kept the memory of my mother alive in me, by his constant reminders.  Including that my mother was a prisons warden of high repute.

The last time I had a full day with uncle was during the funeral of my aunt, his sister, at Kendu bay.  Uncle was smart as usual, despite his advanced age.  His wide tie was hanging on his neck.  I had also known uncle as quite strict and a disciplinarian to his children.  I had visited his home near Sagam in Yala several times, and I saw how he handled his children.  They would never dare do anything nonsensical near him.  But if my uncle was strict, then his wife was double that.  

My auntie, his wife, would actually beat up the children, even the over eighteens, right in front of all and sundry, and she would feel nothing.  The children knew her so well that when she called any of them to ‘sort an issue’, they would never come over, since they knew that a compulsory slap would be awaiting.  Though uncle and auntie never tried anything on me, I had already learnt and known their temperaments and I had learnt the limits of dare.  I had got enough lessons in discipline by observation rather than participation.

On this last meeting with uncle, he had pulled me aside and proceeded with his firm hand grip and went through the usual trance once more time, ending finally with, “Okewa!  My nephew!  My favourite nephew”

He reminded me of my roots in Yala, in Ahono, from the Dholuo people of Gem clan.  He reminded me of how my mother was his favourite sister.  He reminded me that I had come from a clan of the learned, people who chewed books like grass and studied upto the best universities in the world.

“Your mother was an educated girl,” he reminded me.

“She went to school, unlike other girls of those days,” he continued, “It is just by good luck that your father got her from school to Luhyia land before she got to university”

“That is the clan that I am talking about.  You must remain true to the clan.  You must continue learning since being brainy runs in the clan,” he told me, taking some time to reflect on that statement.

“Okewa!,” he laughed, visibly happy, “You know Ngolo Rangorango?”

“Who?”

“Yes, Ngolo, the great scholar who read all the books in the world,” he updated me. 

That name was distantly familiar.  It was a name I had heard when I was young.  I even remember someone pointing at some fenced homestead compound when I visited my uncle during my formative years.

“You are of the same clan.  I want you to read books like him.  You already have the brains of the clan.”

That would turn out to be the last meeting.  How I wish that there would have been another meeting before this news of his demise.  How I wish that he would have updated me on the full history of the clan all the way Gem and his brother Ugenya.

So, as I did the run today, not noticing even where I was most of the run, absentminded with the memories of uncle, I knew that I was doing the last run with him.  He would not finish the run of today as he had retired midway, when the mental imaginations of him faded away.  He urged me on, asking me to keep going and never look back.  On I went to run in almost under 5-minutes per kilometre average.  The first time that I have managed such an 'almost' speed over that 24k route this month, missing it by only 4-seconds average.  Maybe the secret of some great runner from the clan is yet to be told.  The one whom I have taken after.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, July 25, 2021