Appreciating Mum

Before Mum suffered a stroke in 2013, I often saw her tend our farm in the morning, wash clothes (including Dad's) and then head to my hometown of Kiserian to open her shop where she earned money to put food on the table.

Perhaps because she knew the importance of self-reliance, she instilled us with a strong work ethic, always ensuring we had work to do when we weren't going to school. Work like fetching firewood, grazing cattle and tilling our farm.

I vividly remember a morning in 1997 when she left us with some work to do and then unexpectedly came back, only to find us idling in the house. She lashed out at us.

Her sternness once saved me from trouble. Well, there was this boy who bullied me as I took milk to the home of a distant neighbor called Mrs. Mathenge in the mid '90s. He would even extort money from me.

One evening, he threw a stone at me. It hit me on the head, making me bleed. When Mum came home that day, I told her about it. Obviously infuriated, she had the men at home, including a beefy uncle of mine called Gichure, accompany us to the boy's home, a shack actually.

We found the boy with her mother in the shack which looked more like a tomb for lack of electrical lighting. When Mum launched into a complaint about what the boy had done to me, his mother sided with her and soon, they were both rebuking him. He never bullied me again.

Unfortunately, Mum was diagnosed with a heart condition in 1999 that forced us to raise money for her surgery. When she was taken to hospital a few weeks or so later, my schoolmate James Koigi told me he saw her being fed with pipes.

For some strange reasons, I can't remember feeling anxious over what Koigi told me, perhaps because I was absorbed in my academic work and in the sexual fantasies that adolescents have. Thankfully, Mum's heart surgery went well.

Later in the year 2000, she had me transferred to Kunoni Educational Centre where I finished off my primary school and made it to Starehe Boys' Centre, a prestigious institution in Nairobi where I had my high school and college education.

Although Mum remained in good health for quite a number of years, I think her heart condition was what caused the stroke she had in 2013. She has been resting at home since then and she is yet to recover fully. In fact, her health problems have been getting worse.

Last year, she developed diabetes. Then several weeks ago, she fell down and dislocated a pelvic bone. We are doing the best we can to help her. It's what we can do for her anyway given the much she did for us.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy "Mum & Dad: My Pillars of Strength".