Hearing an obituary announcement on the radio was the closest we ever got to death that happened in a distant land we did not know much about. The only time I ever attended a funeral as a child was my paternal grandmothers’ back in Gikuyu in the late 1970s. I did not share a deep connection with her because I hardly knew her. But I realized how painful death is because that was the only time in my life, then and now, that I ever saw my Tough as Nails, Hard Charging father shedding tears. Tears of sorrow for his beloved departed mother, and that made me sad for my father. That is when I realized he was human after all. Who knew? In OlKalou though, life was good, with everybody we knew still living and thriving. That is why there was never any activity in that small room at the hospital, I doubt they ever had any bodies there.
But that did not remove the stigma of death for us. As we walked into the hospital, we avoided looking the direction of the “room”. As we got to know the hospital staff, we were shown one tall gentleman who was the ‘room’ attendant. From that day onwards, we changed course any time we saw him walking towards us. He represented death and we did not want any part of it.
But we grew up and started understanding the circle of life which includes death. We have since lost people we knew and loved, and the dreaded “room” gained a whole new meaning for us. Everybody who grew up in OlKalou and larger parts of Nyandarua has at some point had a friend or loved one resting in that “room”. That is how life humbles us. If we give ourselves time to understand things, we gain new perspective and the scary and stigma is removed, leaving us free to live our lives, unafraid.
