This man My Father.

This Man My father.

Many sons miss Dad sometimes not just for the parental advice,nor the clinical obsession that was or wasn’t,but mostly when they need their old coach in an area of life that’s currently giving them extra troubles.For a man whose father was always absent or distant,this loss of audience always clouds the air.And the loss becomes a mess when the father dies and the son realizes that now it’s quite crystal, that he will never get those fatherly things he craved all his life…

When my dad gave up the ghost two weeks ago,I brought to mind the things I could still recollect about him.From his veteran afro that had probably been jet black before going battleship grey,always kept in apple pie order ;to the nail of his left pinkie that he always kept longer and neat.From his snuff-coloured safari boots that my siblings always maintained buying for him to his classic Akala That he bought from Otati market.I still remember the old age scent from his clothes .And that small brach-of-a-tree made maswak(toothbrush) he kept at the window.The way he finely folded the legs of his trousers whenever he left with the cattle either to go grazing or business.He was a cattle trader.He was also a teacher though he taught back probably in the seventies before I was even born.I later found out that he had been 58 to 60 years old when I was born.He was born in 1937 according to his kipande(national ID),and I later in 1995.

My father didn’t raise me to become who I am today though.Maybe he was too old,maybe just tired after the first batch of eleven kids,or maybe he was just like that.Am quite indifferent if asked how i feel about it.Someone might feel like am complaining too much,like am beginning to whine for no reason.No.I guess he did what he had to do with the time,with the way my older siblings were breaking down at his funeral it started to occur to me that somehow he could’ve been father of the year if I had been born earlier.Instead I moved in with my brother winstone with whom upto now am still convinced that we will never be friends.This is mostly because he is the perfectionist while am the broken piece of shit mess,he’s the fighter and the most temperamental at times.I wont be able to go all judgemental on him much because uttering such nasty shit about someone who has offered you life can be the most ungrateful,especially where am from.

My father was SDA.If you’ve been to any adventist families you might have already sketched him in the skies singing those hymnals from Nya Gendia,the luo adventist hymnal.I still recall his little melancholy tunes whenever he sang or whistled before reading the bible out loud,probably so we could hear too from the kitchen house.

Usually I never talk about my father.Especially when conversations about dads come up amongst my friends.I usually mention my brother in place of him because he’s the one who’se been like a father.Nostalgic memories between me and my father are quite few and far between.I miss him despite the fact.I actually hadn’t seen him for six months before his demise.I’m just travelling home from campus when my sister texts “Baba is very sick.”I don’t know how one is supposed to feel towards a text like that but honestly,I felt quite indifferent.The kind of feeling that puts you on the fence…