Forms of Grieving

People handle grieve in different ways and it’s recommended to everyone so that there is closure and someone can move on.

Yesterday was nana Catherine’s burial and I met many of my relatives that I had not seen in a long time. The ceremony began in good time and during the viewing of the body nothing dramatic happened, there was just that quite sadness but I was impressed by my ten year old cousin who was able to calmly say goodbye.

When her casket was lowered to the ground, one of my cousins refused to leave the grave site and cried uncontrollably and even insulted the people who were burying her asking them what they were doing to nana, she could not be comforted no matter what anybody said.

My mama didn’t cry, I guess her pain is greater than any tears .After all she lost her mum.

There were great grand children of nana who cried because they saw others cry.

As for me as I said farewell, I was engraved by so much sadness and I cried softly as we sent her on a new journey resting in peace.

How do you grieve?

Death Has Come

My grandmother Catherine died two days ago and I am just sad. She was eighty six years old and even though I knew she was going to die one day, I am still surprised that its has happened.

Why is it so hard to accept death yet it must happen?

The question that I can’t get out of my mind as I replay our visits together is whether she was happy and fulfilled. When I last spoke to her, she talked about death and that she was ready to go and held nothing bad against anybody.

Does that mean that someone can tell when they are about to die?  So many questions who will provide the answers?

The point I have learnt is to live our lives to the best of our ability and treat the people in our lives with the outmost of respect.

Rest in peace my darling grandmother Catherine.

Who do you need to visit today? Please do it.

WHAT IS MEANT TO BE MUST BECOME.

We try so hard for things to go the way we want them to but most of the time that does not happen and life has now taught me to do the best of my ability and leave what I can’t change.

I have an older friend who has been working in a very stressful work place for the last four years and we talked about her getting a different job even though it would involve her working as a nanny.

Too much stress can lead someone to make hasty decisions and she finally secured a job with a good family to take care of their three children and she was delighted especially because she is very fond of children. She did not inform her former employer that she was leaving.

We can do so much but prevent the unexpected, her former employer tracked her down and accused her of theft and she was remanded in prison for two month as the investigations were being carried out. Good prospered and she was set free but without a job in addition.

Does it profit anyone to do the right thing all the time?

The two month in the remand prison only strengthened her spirit and the unexpected happened the family she had secured the nanny position with called her and offered her the position back.

 Yes she is home now doing what pleases her heart. It was meant for her, it had to be.

LITTLE SURPRISES.

The weekend was good and I went to visit a long time friend who I share a certain passion with and I took the the matatu there. There was this four year old and her mom abound the matatu she was drinking lucozade from a tetra pack and the mom was drinking a soda.

After the packet was empty, the mom offered her the soda and what surprised me is that she shook her head signifying that she was not interested in the soda and in a short while she was fast asleep in her mother’s arms. Pardon me for thinking that children have a sweet tooth.

I had a saloon appointment on Sunday and I found a small girl in the drier and after she was done and left, I found out that my hair dresser had to hurry me along since she was going to the girl’s house to help her dress up for an occasion that was taking place that evening at 7pm. I was insulted since I had made the appointment earlier on but on inquiring if it was a birthday party, I was shocked speechless on learning that the 14 year old girl was getting married on the material day and I wondered if her small body and young age would be able to handle the responsibilities of marriage.

There were stickers all over town in the morning when I got to town and I was in so much hurry to stop and read what was posted until I saw an older gentleman in his late sixties climbing up and peeling them off. What would have prompted him to wake up so early and dangle dangerously to get rid of them?

How was your weekend?

ALCOHOL ABUSE.

Human beings struggle with one form of addiction or another and it’s not easy to overcome an addiction.

A friend of mine introduced me to the party scene where an ordinary night out would start with a glass of wine and we would just have some fun, eat and go home and basically this became a routine .What actually changed was the amount of wine I had since I took more and more to feel a bit of high.

Life has its way of surprising us and due to the more frequency of consumption of alcohol, our friendship broke and now I would go to the bar by myself and switched to stronger spirits since the wine no longer gave me a kick.

Consumption of alcohol when it reaches its peak can make an individual not eat, or bath or even care about anything else but having that drink.

Apparently I would meet a person at a certain venue and we would chat when I was drunk but on meeting them when somber would not even remember having met them. Walking dead becomes a reality in that on waking up the following morning, I would not remember how I got home.

Alcohol on its own has its good value but when abused can be a lethal weapon. It can humiliate and bring an individual to bankrupsy. I lost count of the number of times that I fell over and got scars that are still a reminder of the damage I inflicted on myself.

Someone who has never been addicted to alcohol will never know that it’s a sickness and someone needs help to overcome it. My everyday recommendation is that if you have never consumed it then don’t start because you might be in the few percent that gets addicted, and if you do consume it, please learn your limit and stick to it.

I am very thankful to a particular friend who did not give up on me and even went to an extent of going with me as I had my drink and waited patiently until I was able to overcome that addiction no judgment offered.

What is your addiction?

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

Assumption can be very dangerous as it distorts the truth about an issue. I have been struggling with resentment for my neighbor opposite me because I have not been understanding why he parks his bicycle in my space for the last two weeks and I was preparing myself to confront him since I have been moving it every evening as I enter my apartment.

The other day he came out as I was moving it and I was too angry to confront him and I am just so thankful that I held my tongue, it turns out that the bicycle belongs to a guy who lives in the upstairs apartment.

Now I know that my neighbor is a gentleman as he said nothing in the past two weeks yet I was the unreasonable one in not finding out the reason for the bicycle being there.

What have you done due to lack of knowledge on a certain matter?

MY KENYAN CUMMUTER TRAIN.

There are different types of addiction and I guess that I have established mine.

I am addicted to the commuter train.

I reside in Kasarani that is about 35 kilometers from the Nairobi city centre and since I am currently taking public transportation, I can get home by using a bus (Matatu), take the bike ride (boda boda) or go by the commuter train.

The train has very few regulations and the cars fill to the brim, what is purposed to carry thirty nine passengers may as well fit a hundred on a good day but on other days I have lost count.

What is the beauty that I have found in this mode of transportation?

The People, different kinds of people. Every day offers a different kind. Happy people, people with long faces, children and the elderly. I will never forget this particular older gentleman who sat opposite me. As we waited for the train to leave the station he sat quietly and got out a bottle containing a herbal mixture and sipped on it as we proceeded, he would on occasion shake his head, when he had drunk the whole bottle he removed a smaller bottle with water like fluid and continued to sip.

The unexpected happened I saw him smile and talk to the man sited next to him and then it clicked, he needed to borrow courage from the bottle, what he was consuming was actually alcohol.

By the end of my journey, he had made us laugh so hard by the tales that he shared with us about his youth.

Do you take the train home and what is your story?

PUSHED TO THE WALL.

A rubber band can hold together a big bunch of paper money but if it’s stretched far enough it snaps and breaks.

How far can you push someone until he or she snaps and is not responsible for their action?

An unfortunate situation saw me go back to live with my dad and mum.

 my mom is a retired teacher and by then she had three months to go to her retirement and she was excited about starting a retailing shop that would sell groceries among other things and every morning the three of us would have breakfast before she left for school. She would tell my dad and I about all those plans she had for her shop and my dad would take every opportunity to water down her ideas and I could see my mum hurriedly finish her breakfast and leave.

This became the daily routine until slowly my mum just stopped talking about it and my dad would bring it up to provoke her until I personally stopped having breakfast with them but the saddest part is that once my mum finally retired she abandoned all her plans to start the shop, till today it remains just a buried dream.

Fortunes keep changing and thanks to God I managed to move out  and get a job and for a while it was bliss and then a new colleague related to my boss came into our office and unfortunately I had to share space with him in the same office and since he could get away with anything, he started watching cartoon with a high volume just behind my desk.

To avoid rocking the boat, I would wear headphones but then my boss told me that I could not use them in his office so I switched to earplugs when he was not in the office I was very comfortable.

So my colleague saw that I would remove the earplugs when the boss came in and he took that opportunity to put the volume higher.

This went on for a few months and I guess that is where my breaking point reached. On the material day before 9 am the cartoon was loud and his laughter louder so I put on my earplugs and then the unfortunate happened, the boss came back to the office.

Until today, I have no idea how I was able to just turn around and switched off his computer.

And what is even more amazing is the shock that almost made him fall off his chair. Let’s just say the cartoons are not watched during working hours anymore and to have a plan B I found out how to remote control his computer now I can just switch it off from the comfort of my desk top.

How far have you been pushed?

LOVE THEM NEIGHBORS.

Most of the time our parents determine the kind of people that we became by the teachings they give us when we are yet babes. Teach a child when young and he/she will not depart from that when they grow old.

How do people understand common sense?

I live in an apartment building and it never ceases to amaze me the things people think they can get away with. My neighbor that I share a wall with on my right has a small child and I can understand that it can get overwhelming at times but honestly how does someone drop the used baby diaper on the floor and leave it there for two days and think that is okay?

I don’t want to state that I am perfect God forbid maybe the mere sight of my face pisses someone off but welcome to my other precious occupant to my left we share a wall, mine being my bedroom and His I guess the living room.

On several occasions I have been woken because my bed was vibrating from the loud music coming from his apartment.

Is there anything as intrusive as noise?

I was brought up with the principle that you do to others as you would like them to do to you so where do you draw the line on this one?

So how is your neighbor today?

Fear Of The Dark.

The absence of light can create its own imaginings, it doesn't matter how many people are in the room since the eye cannot see.

Does the age of the person reduce the fear?

I sat next to this lady in her 50’s on my way home on the commuter train and we got to chatting on our day and the topic suddenly changed when the train came to a stop for no explained reason from the train engineer, she quickly looked for her cellular phone and called her husband and requested him to meet her at the destination stage where she would alight. Since we had broken the ice and were talking before the incident I asked her why she needed company yet the night was still young.

She explained to me that when she was a child she lived with her mother and her three siblings and at one particular night thugs broke into their house and demanded for money and since the mother did not have any, they put her in a sack and tied it up and since she was only eight years old there was nothing that she could do and managed to escape outside the house and two of the thugs saw her and chased her through the maize plantation  and since it was dark, they were not able to find her and she was lucky to find  a way to their neighbors house where they called the police. No one was hurt physically but that began her journey of the fear of the dark.

At the end of every day darkness must come in to mark the end of the day so how do you handle this?

As I watched her leave, I saw her wave to a man who waited patiently at the platform and then it occurred to me. He was not afraid of the dark but he had to live with it for the sake of his loved one.

So how do you handle your fear?