By Daniel Kakuru
It is my mother who called me first this morning. It’s not infrequent, given that it’s a Sunday. Usually, she wants to ask whether I have or not gone to church. And please note that I have to explain myself till my voice gets hoarse whenever I am considering staying away from church that day. In her little world, the sacrilegious act of missing the church proceedings on a Sunday translates into renouncing God. I am quite argumentative. But sometimes my explanations never satiate her, so she just hangs up on me, a discomfitured woman.
Today’s phone call was like no other. She is no sorcerer, but somehow she has managed to find out that death has been smiting close to me, lately. She apprehends that a certain room which I occupied during my college days has lost two of its former occupants inside a space of only six months, and that only two of us are left. She goes on to philosophize; to make conclusions about how the devil is after all of us; and that unless we seek exorcism, we are doomed.
For about five minutes, she preaches. I listen, sometimes chuckling lightly, sometimes humming in agreement. The devil will kill you all, unless you pray. You don’t want to die young, do you? She asks.
I could be wrong, but my mother is the most religious person I have ever known. She attaches spiritual explanations to everything that happens. Are you jobless? It is the devil locking up your opportunities; you need to pray hard. Are you sick? It is the devil attempting to kill you; you should pray hard. Are you a thirty year old person and no man has suggested marrying you? The devil is in control; pray hard and break those chains.
It is because of her spirituality that I have carefully tucked away this little secret: three weeks ago I decamped death. I was negotiating a sharp corner when I lost control of the motorbike on which I was riding. My eyes got covered in darkness. The next I saw, I was on a government hospital bed with a fractured clavicle, a dislocated hip joint and multifarious wounds. I did not descry the good Samaritans who granted me salvation, but I still pray that God felicitates them.
I am now recuperating. Slowly and surely, I am learning how to walk again without a limp. I have found my way towards my work place. It is this proficiency that matters to me. I have had the fortuity of looking at the pictures of the motorbike on which I was riding. Everything about it was annihilated. It is impossible to believe that it left a survivor.
Somewhere in Kyenjojo, Kugonza was not as lucky as I was. His story is concordant to mine except that while I lost control of my motorbike and fell over the edge of a cliff, he lost control of his and rammed into a speeding motorcar. While I fell down and lost my consciousness, he fell and on spot, his feet danced the jig of death. He closed his eyes and never opened them again. His body lay in a pool of his blood by the roadside and became stiff. The following day, while I was in hospital with a smidgen of hope, his body was being lowered into the red earth.
Kugonza was my acquaintance in school. Much he was a class ahead of me, we shared a lot. We supported the same football club and usually shouted our voices shaggy whenever our team won. But it was the manner in which he met his death that hit me hardest. Much as I repudiated and postponed my death he didn’t.
At his send-off, a verse from the book of Revelation was quoted by the preacher: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Rev 21:4
In Isingiro District, somewhere in a village close to the Tanzanian border, another classmate of mine was laid to rest the day before yesterday. At just twenty-four, Chrispus decided he had lived enough. On a random evening, he developed acute febrile convulsions and died of hypoglycemia in the intensive care unit. There was no warning. The convulsions arrived from nowhere the way ghosts do, and did not leave him; not until he had been wheeled into the intensive care unit; not until he had aspirated and choked on more than enough saliva; not until he had used up all the glucose in his body.
At his send-off, the same verse from the book of Revelation was quoted; “….. and there shall be no more death…..”
These experiences have humbled me. I am living each day like it’s my last. Death is always hovering over us and can pick you up randomly without caring about whether it stole someone close to you just a day or two before.
I don’t know what my mother will say when I pack up what is left of me and leave the land of the living. Whether she blames the devil or not, I shall not be here to listen to her lamentations.
But the Lord willll wipe away all her tears. He will forgive all my sins. He will take me to that place where there shall be no more death.
About the Author.
Daniel Kakuru is a lover of life and social commentary. He believes he is no more valuable than a mug of porridge. He writes under a Facebook hashtag #MugOfPorridge and blogs at danielkakuru.wordpress.com
