Death Strikes My Neighborhood

The other day, I was lying gloomily in bed when I heard someone knock the door. I sprang out of bed to check who was knocking, and it turned out to be a neighbor we call Mkisii. He asked me whether my parents were around. And then while wearing a grief-stricken face, he blurted out in Swahili, "My wife has died!"

Since I was feeling gloomy that morning, I wasn't in the mood of prodding Mkisii into telling me more about his wife's death. I just expressed my sympathy, closed the door and toddled off to bed, feeling gloomier and worrying that a similar tragedy could befall my family.

Later on, I regretted why I hadn't prodded Mkisii into telling me what caused his wife's untimely demise. I have described her demise as untimely because a few months ago, I had seen her come to fetch water from our tank. To hear of her death surprised me.

Yesterday though, I had an opportunity to talk with Mkisii when he was leaving our home with jerrycans of water. In an affable manner, I inquired from him what caused his wife's death.

Well, Mkisii is not a man of means given the way he comes to borrow water from us. He works as a watchman at some place in or near my hometown of Kiserian. But when it came to narrating the cause of his wife's death, he used such scientific jargon as "pulmonary artery" that I would not have expected of him.

He informed me that his wife had suffered tuberculosis some years back. The disease impaired her respiratory system which eventually led to the complications that claimed her life last week. And he went on to tell me that they had harvested maize together that very day she passed away. Truly, the world is like that - incomprehensible and full of surprises.

Now as I pen this story, I am at peace and less worried about a similar tragedy striking my family. Nonetheless, I am more conscious of the fact that death is awaiting us all sometime in the future. We are all on borrowed time.

Thinking about death has reminded me to make the most of each day and have all the fun I can while I am still in the land of the living, for as Cristy Lane sang, "tomorrow may never be mine".

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