friendship

Closure

“Don’t leave without saying goodbye”…that’s what Rio said to Hallie at some point in Liz Tomforde’s last book of the Windy City Series; Rewind it Back.

Sometimes I feel the understanding of a thing helps. I used to think closure was overrated. Well, in my defence, I was younger and I wasn’t really in tune with my feelings back then.

Having lived a little longer, I know for certain that closure is not overrated.

Looking back in the past couple of years, I know for sure it’s the reason I can’t help but cry every time I remember my friend Faz. It’s the reason I have a tiny RotaKids T-shirt that SonTer outgrew years ago.

Faz was my friend through secondary school, we bonded some more when we found we were pregnant in the same period. She had her Ember in February and I had my SonTer in June of 2013.

We also loved the fact that our birthdays were just days apart, 26th August for her and 23rd August for me.

Her Mom ran one of the best primary schools in our town and so that’s where SonTer went. Faz became the school administrator at some point and she insisted that SonTer join the RotaKids…a youth program sponsored by Rotary international. Hence the T-shirt.

Faz and I saw each other everyday. We would keep in touch via chat when school was on holiday.

Faz passed away in December 2020. We didn’t say goodbye. It was sudden and it hurts so much. Still does.

Travel Favours

When I was 8 years old, a very good friend gave me a T-shirt she had brought from her Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It read;”My very good friend went to Jerusalem and all she got for me was this lousy tee-shirt”.

I felt really special. I thought she had had it inscribed like that just for me. I would learn years later that it wasn’t so. That didn’t change how much I valued the tee though.

I love it when someone goes away and remembers to bring me something… anything. It let’s me know I was in their thoughts at some point on the trip.

My very fantastic sister took a trip to Kenya and I’m glad she got me some good Kenyan tea and a kimono

I flaunt it today and I say thank you.

Cup contains well brewed Kenyan tea laced with some fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Kanga

We learn every day. And I love it.

Today I learned about Kanga

Kanga is a traditional Kenyan cloth. It’s usually rectangular and the dimensions vary, but often always is 150cm by 110cm.

The Kanga is used in different ways and this is a matter of choice. Some use it as a scarf, others as a wrap around the shoulders and/or shawl. Some people use it as a tie cloth like a skirt.

The common thing about the Kanga is the inscription or quote that always comes with it. This is referred to as ‘Jina’. The Jina is often a riddle, proverb or any other kind of message.

Some people have used the Kanga as a means of passing messages (Political, traditional or religious).

I got my first Kanga today as a gift from a friend who lives in Nairobi, so I decided to find out what it was.

The write up on my Kanga reads; TUWE NA HAIBA TUPENSEZE DAIMA.

I checked a translation online and it tells me to always be charming and Believe. I hope it translates right.

I love my Kanga

For years, the 30th day of July has been set aside to celebrate the day of friendship.

A few countries celebrate this on the first Sunday of August.

One of these countries that celebrate in August is me, yeah… Me.

I celebrate it in August because I love August…it’s the month of my birth.

Friendship; a mutual feeling/affection between two people.

I wasn’t brought up to accept friendship. My mum must have been dealt a hard blow by a friend or something because she would always remind me and my siblings that we didn’t have friends…

My mom made sure I knew that a friend was separate from a classmate, a neighbor, a colleague and all.

A friend was a friend.

I managed to figure it out over the years… I have made some good friends.

My sisters… Dough, Angela, Msugh…anr my other “sisters”… Gosha, Gyen, Ngodoo.

Cousins… Su, Henry.

Friends from childhood that have spanned three decades and more… Dooyash, Enach, Dudu, Vivian, Rosemary.

Friends from boarding school that stayed with me… Uzoma, Oyidu, Rikye, Pasen.

A friend from University that became a sister… Ronnie.

A neighbour that became a friend…Orako

Friends I’ve made in the course of life…Helen, Nguwa, Aves.

Cheers to all of you darling friends.

I celebrate you today

Happy Friendship day

Belated…

I don’t even have a clue how the day flew so fast. I had made a mental note to call Helen, my Wonder woman. Next thing I know, I arrive home late, I’m struggling to get things done and I still hadn’t called her.

Then I remembered something like this had happened with Orako Zoe and I ended up not calling her at all and she thought I had forgotten her birthday… She called me out immediately I wrote I think of you (Part 2)… I didn’t want that to happen again.

So I stopped everything I was doing and I called Helen. Belated but still in time. It was her birthday. Ordinarily, we would have made plans and we could have spent some part of the day together, being silly… but she up and left our town… I’m still trying to deal with that.

The highlight of it all is this; at the end of our call, she told me my call and the conversation we had just made her entire day…

I was glad I stopped everything to call her.

I’m going to be stopping everything for loved ones when I need to.

I may just be making their day with the stop… Heck, I may be making my own day as well.

Change is sure

For a while now I have been thinking a lot about my friend Dooyash, the friend I wrote about in What kind of mum are you?

We have been friends for as long as I can remember, we started nursery school together at age 4. We were also roommates in our final year in university.

Dooyash lived on Golden morn. A breakfast cereal which she had at any time of the day.

Lately my son, who has never liked Golden morn…ever, has suddenly fallen in love with it. It’s why I think of Dooyash these days.

SonTer never liked anything that even tasted like breakfast cereal. I remember how he used to feign puking whenever I fed it to him. The last time I tried was the day he froze and feigned shock for a few seconds…he is dramatic…like his mum.

This sudden love for something he never liked makes me realise, nothing stays the same… everything and everyone is subject to change.

2 is a crowd

I’ve probably always been in a clique without knowing it. Way back in my secondary school days, I got punished one day, along with some of my close friends. We were being punished for taking our food out of the dinning area. It was totally prohibited, but we had a few spices and garnishes and so we had wanted to enjoy the meal in the comfort of our space. While we received a week long punishment, the words we kept hearing were “your clique”. We were 7 friends, unconsciously, we preferred to do stuff together and over time, I guess it seemed like a preplanned group.

In my university days, something similar happened, by the time I had been rounding up, I realised I had kept company with a select close group the entirety of my stay. 5 years.

Some years ago, I found myself in an unconsciously formed clique again…but this is where it got different. At the precise moment when we found out we were knit, we began to make it intentional. I would like to admit that those few years we maintained an intentional group friendship were some of the best years of my adult life. We were all strange “girls”. Each of us needing to be alone sometimes…and so we always knew when to give each other space. We all respected each other’s time and privacy yet, we were in all our businesses, we looked out for each other. We made plans and we made time to carry out those plans. One that remains undone is our road trip. We never got to do certain stuff, with all 5 of us in our 30’s with families, businesses and/or jobs to attend to, it was a tough one, trying to synchronize our lives for some activities.

Looking back at all the group friendships I’ve had, I have come to realise that I feel crowded by one on one friendships. I have some of them and I love them, but I think i carry traits of a wolf. I do better in a pack. The average wolf pack size is 6…that’s just right for me.

In the absence of a pack, I always fly solo 😁.

Sad truth

Sometime last year I was scrolling through the pages on the blue app and I found one of Torkwase’s questions, it read; “what is the ‘hardest’ truth/fact you have learnt?” I started to type my reply and stopped right in the middle of it. I couldn’t write it. I was half pissed and half ashamed. I didn’t write anything. Today, 13 months later, I remembered that question and I have the same reply.

I lost a very dear friend on the 4th of December 2020, on that same day my sisters came into town. They were sad for me, they knew what I was going through. The thing is, when I woke up that morning, I had a truck load of responsibilities I had to see through. It was the reason my siblings were in town. I never knew that before the day would get going I would get the news about my friend’s passing. The next day was the wedding of one of my cousins. I was responsible for almost all of the planning.

I didn’t explain what I meant by “my sisters came into town”. My sisters and I have this thing. We can talk, laugh and go crazy for hours, especially when we haven’t seen each other in a while. I had been looking forward to seeing them for weeks…but when they got here, I was numb. I spent the entire 4th of December in a haze, running errands and trying to be normal. I didn’t sleep. Not even a wink. By day break on the 5th, I decided not to put a damper on the wedding and its activities so I decided to put up a facade and be merry with everyone.

It turned out to be a beautiful day. I ended up having a lot of fun. My staff and students cooked and served the food at the wedding and it was lovely. I had another wedding cake to present at the other side of town, I tried to do it but it couldn’t work out, Sandra ended up doing that for me and she did great. The whole family had a great day. We took lots of photos and caught up with all the family members we hadn’t seen in a while. After the wedding, we sat at my dad’s house and talked and shared drinks till almost midnight.

That was when it hit me… I lost my friend, it hurt. It really hurt but I went ahead and did the things I had to do and continued with my life. That truth shocked me, it upset me and there was nothing I could do about it, it was the sad truth… Life goes on.

So Torkwase, that’s my sad, ‘hardest’ truth/fact… Life goes on.

Enjoy life

Let your every day bloom and be bright like a daisy

Life is great. Even at the end of a bad day, we look forward to the next day because we know and hope deep down that the next day will be better. Everyone likes to quote “when there is life, there is hope” and it remains a fact. I feel that life can be better, if in addition to hoping that the next day be better, we add intentionality into making it better. In many situations this may not be easy but it is worth a try.

I’ll like to focus on intentionality in relationships. Relationships with our mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, cousins and nibblings, mothers and fathers inlaw, sisters and brothers inlaw, friends, colleagues etc. One thing that helps us enjoy life and have great days for sure is the people around us and people who love us and also the people we love. No one is an island. That’s another fact… That is why I believe that one major thing we need to be intentional about is our relationships.

I’m not a clingy adult. Growing up in a large extended family and being the youngest, I used to be a clingy child, squeezing into people to sit and holding on to my older ones. I don’t know what happened along the way, I can only now describe myself as a “friendly” loner. I dare say, I grew up to realise that I was the last born at home only and not last born of the world. As an adult I have found myself building friendships and relationships but I never get clingy. I think I’m okay with that. However, I try to make sure that I maintain peace and love within these friendships and relationships. I may go long periods of time without reaching out to some, I may talk to some daily and some maybe weekly… But in my heart I make sure there aren’t any hanging ill feelings. I intentionally make sure of that.

I believe that, if for any reason someone is upset with me I should make atleast one effort to make things right. The hard part is the battle against pride, very very hard. I have seen my good intentions win the battle 90% of the time so I’m going to give myself a pat on the back.

The uncertainty of the where and when of the afterlife should be our driving force to do right by ourselves and others. I have chosen to continue to be intentional in my relationships and not only hope they get better. I hope we all do the same because life if great, life is meant to be enjoyed and to be enjoyed with loved ones.