The Day My Father Cried

He had large arms, a clean shaved beard and he combed his hair for minutes every morning – that was my dad as we were growing up. Often he would capture like three of us in his hand and spunk us seriously, he would always be alert all night that when something creaked outside he would walk out with a machete. He was a strong guy, well built and industrious – age has stolen all these from my dad. Now he is tied to church – an ageing man who now needs glasses to see who is calling on his mobile phone. He now spends the best part of the day herding his cows and goats, repairing furniture, checking his flower gardens, planting trees and tending the bananas behind our kitchen.

The year is 1988. That is the first time I saw my father cry. He cried deeply, he cried like a baby with a broken toy. He cried his eyes red and blew his nose shamelessly. He walked feebly and wobbled like a bat in the dungeons. Everyone cried on that fateful day – it was actually Christmas day. My grandfather, my father’s dad had gone to be with the Lord.

I really have a hazy memory of my grandfather, I can’t even remember his tone and voice; all I can remember is his white hair – really white, silk-white. He used to tell us stories, stories I remember to date, stories I kept for my kids only to realize today they will value my phone to play games on than sit like knights on a chess board listening to me tell ogre tales that make no sense. So, I have kept these stories to myself – maybe I will tell their kids – my grandchildren. By then I will have white hair like my grandfather – I will not dye my hair when I grow old. At least the hair will attract their attention and the stories will roll out.

My grandfather had been taken ill like three days before his demise and was better and discharged only to go down again on Christmas eve and depart on Christmas day. My father had lived with my grandfather the best part of his life in Muguga where grandfather worked for a Mzungu. They had such a friendship, so strong that one looked like the shadow of the other. That day my grandfather died, my father was broken. He was desolate and powerless. The pain and grief broke his eyeballs into teary streams – it seized and dragged the man in him to distant plains where it tortured him senseless. My father stood alone, like a shell of fossil. He was sick, sullen and sunken. His world gaped in and his hope spiraled away in a thin cloud never to come back. The strongest man was the weakest on this day of December.

I was young and quiet. I knew grandfather was dead and I didn’t understand the whole thing about death and the implications thereof. Grandfather was buried and after sometime everyone got back to their daily life. We often passed by the grave and hoped the old man would come out at some point. We feared to sit on the head of the grave because we thought we would hurt his brittle bones. We didn’t know that once you go down there where there is no light; there is no return path. Grandfather has been down there since 1988, maybe his bones have now powdered in to some grey ashes and his teeth hang lonely on his skull.

Death made my father cry. 

Death made my father normal.

A few years later, I had to stand before the knife. I had been told that men don’t cry – real men. On that foggy morning, in the mist of the thickets and eerie sounds of the streams, I waited for my turn. I had no shorts on – all of us naked in a single file. I learned that the cold was to thicken and numb our flesh to stand the dread of the knife. We didn’t talk. We simply waited. It was my time. I stood there in high spirits because my day was here – I was becoming a man in the most respected way. I did what I had been told: to ‘bite’ my teeth together. I listened; I writhed and swallowed pain down my belly. The taste of pain is so bitter especially as it passes the esophagus, as it passes by the lungs, it tends to borrow some more bitterness from the bile as it finally settles in the stomach – here it torments like someone was shredding your intestines with a power saw. I braved this and didn’t cry because a man is not supposed to cry.

Well, I have been in this life for a couple of years now and life has kept giving me different scenarios. Many of them haven’t been the best prompting me to cry and others have been so nice that they equally prompted me to cry.

I had a major setback like five years ago. At this point I convinced myself that I wouldn’t break down, I wasn’t going to cry no matter what! I was rocking under the siege of rage, colors of things around me changed, flowers around me smelt foul and the air was full of sand. I remembered the day my father cried and I said to myself, who am I? I did cry.

In my tears I saw peace coming down like a golden vista rolling from without, I saw nature clearing with each drop of tears I shed – I was washing myself with my tears – tears of my eyes. My bones felt strong and washed, shiny and sturdy I could even see them through my skin. I realized that power that is hidden and lying latent in tears.

You are still a man – even if you cried. Cry boy…cry when you must cry...