Remembering Mum

The first time I walked from home to her shop by myself, she was proud of me. She enthused about it when she came home at night that day. That was way back in 1993 when I was five.
We became so close, Mum and I. She liked taking me along to some of the places she visited: sometimes to check on a relative who was admitted at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi and sometimes to the homes of our neighbours.
At one time when we went to visit the relative who was in Kenyatta National Hospital, I refused to eat something the relative offered me. Mum was so impressed with my refusal to eat in the hospital that on our way back home, she promised to buy me something as a reward.
And at another time as we were trudging home at night after visiting a distant neighbour, I strode faster than her to a point of opening up the distance between us to more than eight metres. When we reached home, she praised me for the courage I had shown of walking alone at night.
One Sunday afternoon in 2000, she took me to Kariokor Market in Nairobi. She showed me the place she worked as a tailor before she relocated to Kiserian. When she told me she would go back to that tailoring job, I silently wished she would really do so because at her shop in Kiserian, she seemed to get wind of every mischief I did.
Like it happened, Mum never left her shopkeeping job. Since she had a heart condition, I would sometimes become anxious when I arrived in Kiserian from Nairobi and found her shop closed. Was she sick or something? I would worry.
Besides running her shop, Mum also engaged in church activities. She was religious. I often heard her praying for each member of our family before she left home to open her shop. A couple of years ago, my kid brother Symo attributed the success we have achieved to Mum's intercessory prayers.
Mum's career as a shopkeeper was cut short in 2013 after she suffered a stroke. My family took her to hospital and afterwards, they let her rest at home. For the ten years she rested at home, I had the luck of keeping her company. And I must say I enjoyed the times we shared together.
Once, I asked her to tell me the story of how she and Dad met. She shied away from telling me about their courtship, claiming that that was an inappropriate story for her to narrate. All she disclosed to me was that she wanted a husband who would never beat her up, a wish that God fulfilled.
Sometime last year, Mum formed a habit of requesting me to give her tea and a few slices of bread before I left home at 5 o'clock for my evening exercises. On noting how she liked tea at that hour, I jokingly asked her if her doctor had prescribed it.
Although Mum never read the Bible as much as I did, she was more generous than me. She often tipped our farmhands after they did something exceptional. And she regularly pestered Dad to send money to bereaved relatives and family friends.
Before Mum passed away peacefully in January this year, she used to cause a scare in our family whenever she became ill. Even her having dizziness alarmed us. Her death saddened us all and brought us together as a family.
After we laid her to rest on February 1st, I lacked the courage to go near her grave. I also avoided listening to songs about mothers that I downloaded on my laptop a couple of years ago.
But three weeks ago, more than six months after Mum's burial, I plucked up the courage to go to her grave. I stayed there for about two minutes and felt in my heart the peace that surpasses all understanding.
Perhaps emboldened by that peace, I started listening to the songs on my laptop about mothers that include Tupac Shakur's "Dear Mama" and the wonderful old hymn "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again". It's like I have healed from the grief of losing Mum.
As Mum resides on high, she probably misses us. She must be wondering when we will join her in heaven. And she probably misses me the most given how close we were, especially during the last few years of her earthly life when we stayed together. May she continue dancing with the angels.
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on me remembering Mum, you might also enjoy another one on "Adjusting to Life Without Mum" which I wrote seven months ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
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