Named by the clouds

I can’t remember my father crying for her. Perhaps he did when I was not looking. Perhaps the others saw him – because I don’t know how you can hide a grief so potent from so many people. But as far as my head can give me, he didn’t cry like I remember him crying for Mama. That one I do not even have to remember because there is a tape of it, and some things can never be unseen. Some memories can never rot, however much they get touched by the bony hands of time. Like the memory of your father crying. There is crying out of anger; the one you cry like a wounded animal. And then there is crying like a baby. I was in Class 4 when I saw my father cry like a baby in Mama’s funeral. It is the only time I ever saw him cry.

You have to understand, there is a difference between Mama and Mummy. My mother – my real mother (whatever that even means) is Mummy. But Mama was the mother of the big house. It is the only way we differentiated between my father’s wives, because it is disrespectful to call your elders by their government names.  Mama is the one who opened the doors to death in my life, then others followed not so long after.

First was the lastborn.

In my culture, a life that has not been lived long enough does not get an elaborate funeral. There is no song and dance. There is no tero buru. The mourning of a child’s death is not for grieving, but merely an acknowledgement that this was a visitor, and was not meant to stay in this world. As such, the girl who handed over to me the title of chogo was buried in the morning. Before midday. We were not supposed to dwell in her passing too long. She was not a light, but a flicker. At barely four, she’d be noted in death, not distinguished.

So, my father did not cry when his tenth child died.

In that fortitude I didn’t see a father, but a man whose strength defeated the pain of losing a daughter. A man of tradition. I would wonder, for so long, how that was possible. I imagined that someday he would explain it to me; teach me how to be stoic in the presence of loss. But he did not live long enough to teach me anything either. Three years later, the soil from my hand poured onto his casket.

And I have missed him terribly ever since, but not as much as I did when I lost my first child.

The culture that held back his tears from mourning a toddler also forbids us from naming a child who has yet to be born. It is kind of like that song by Kenny Rogers; you never count your money when you’re sitting at the table. Only difference is, money something you can win back while sitting at the table. At nine weeks, going to ten, we did not know yet what the gender was, but nothing could convince my wife that it wasn’t a girl. A mother can tell, she said.

Yet, long before her womb became a tomb, my wife and I would lay on the couch, thinking of names for our daughter. She loves those fancy names. Those strange foreign names that sound exotic and are supposed deep meanings. I would insist that we name her properly. Give her an ancestral name. A Luo name. The link back to her lineage, in my persistent opinion, would be greatest gift we could ever give her. A name she could trace back to me, then to my father, then to my father’s father, to our people – all the way back to the beginning. Her name would be her roots, and I didn’t give a shit whether it sounded sexy or not.

To be fair, though, my wife didn’t just want a name that tastes like dessert. In her opinion, every human being deserves their own identity. Their own purpose. To be able to grow up and make a name for themselves, if you will, without being shackled by the weight of bloodline or heritage.

In the end, we agreed that we’d split the difference. Two names from me, and two from her mother. And the matter was put on ice. Though, secretly, I swore to myself that that child would grow to choose her Luo name – whichever I’d pick. That I would be her best friend; and we’d go out on dates, just me and her, and leave her mother behind. My wife would be the disciplinarian, and I would be the one to blow off the pains of that discipline with a treat, a hug, a forehead kiss. So that by the time she was old enough, she would prefer to be called the name that I would pick for her.

Magunga, Okango, Oduor, Osaha, Adhiambo or Night.

Then my daughter died long before she was even born.

And I didn’t know what to do.

My father should have been here to teach me how not to deal with this death. To keep my eyes dry like he did when I was in Class Six. He should have been there to teach me not to name a child whose umbilical cord has not been buried. The people who said so knew – even back then – that life is never guaranteed. I should have been patient with my obsession. I should’ve waited for my girl to join us in this world and draw at least seven days of air before giving her a name.

I now know why our ancestors required it that way. So that we did not attach ourselves to people who weren’t meant to stay. Meaning, I brought this pain on myself. All that haggling over names and yet Obong’o Nyakalaga hadn’t even decided whether or not we were supposed to keep this one.

I know now I wouldn’t be drowning had I not walked into the river.

***

Hear me out.

It is not that easy.

I was there when the doctor smeared gel on my wife’s stomach and run that thing across her belly. I remember him pointing at a screen and showing me where my baby was sitting. I didn’t see shit, all I saw was black and white, lie a Greatwall television that has lost signal. But that doctor could’ve sworn by all the books of science that my baby was sitting there, just waiting to meet me in a few moons time. He printed it out – like a memoir – and we walked out of that office a couple of times with my baby in a picture.

Hell, the last time we were there, I heard her heartbeat. It was fast, like she had been running. I asked him to do it again, so that I could record it on my phone. Her first heartbeats. I imagined I’d used it as my ringtone. Or that she’d want to hear it someday, perhaps on her 18^th birthday. Or her wedding day. You know? But the doctor had said no, he couldn’t play the heartbeat again, because the radiation would not be good for her.

Sometimes when I am in the car alone and Coster Ojwang’ is singing Mayoo, I hear that heartbeat, the tarmac lines ahead lose all their definition, and I try – hopelessly – to be as strong as my father.

It is not easy.

It is not easy listen to that heartbeat, looking at those black and white pictures, and not see a person. Every time my wife was tired or hungry, it is because she was carrying someone else I did not mean to offend the gods or the ancestors or whoever the hell set the rules, by thinking about names before the child was born. Surely, you can understand how I rushed into naming her too soon. In my head, it was a good a time as any.

And even if I did, why was the punishment so fucking brutal? Coming back from a dinner date. My wife going to the washroom for a leak as we get ready for bed. Blood on the tissue paper. Phone calls. The cry of our neighbor’s newborn as we get in the car to rush to the hospital. A scan and a curt but absolute ‘missed miscarriage’ written on our prenatal booklet. My wife losing her knees immediately, holding her tummy as if to check if the doctor is lying. And I hold her saying ‘I am so sorry’ as she wails in my chest even though I honestly can’t figure out exactly what I have done wrong. Driving mad to Nairobi Hospital for a second opinion. A second scan. A confirmation. A pair of pills. The funeral in our living room when my wife lights candles, spreads the black and white memoirs on the table, names her Joy and asks me to also say my goodbyes and I refuse.

Instead, I send texts to the people who knew we were pregnant, send resignation emails because there is no way I can create content like this for at least two months. Two months of joblessness and clients thinking I am an asshole for resigning just like that in the middle of the night. The God will make it OK from people who mean well, but really, How do you know? Did He send you? And why can’t He tell me directly? When He wanted my baby, He came and took it, but when He wants to placate me He suddenly can’t do it Himself? Why can’t He look me in the eye and tell me why?  Fucking punk.

The pains of labor when the pills start to work. My wife falling to the ground, and her screams swallowing the whole apartment. Calling my maro – with shame – to come help me assuage the grief of her daughter’s bereavement. Another mad drive back to Nairobi Hospital, madder even, because in my head I am about to lose my wife one month after our wedding.

The longing for my own mother, even though we don’t talk anymore. Then remembering the story, she once told me that even me I wasn’t meant to be here. Had she not fell down those stairs in 1990 with the one she thought would be her last.

The receiving of our wedding photos and I can’t look because at the alter there were three of you. Remembering how you’d planned it so well: An engagement in June, getting off contraception in December, exchanging vows when two-three months pregnant in March, pregnancy shoot in October and having a complete family by Christmas.

The acceptance that, while I was ready to give my baby girl the world, she was already predestined for the heavens.

The postponing of our honeymoon. Then coming back. Then getting pregnant again, just to lose the second baby again after two weeks. A chemical pregnancy, the new doctor had called it. Left as silently as it had arrived.  The juogi of Karuoth had treated my children like pizza on a Tuesday; taken two for the price of one.

Rumo kitam, wuod Alego. Rumo kitam da.

***

Then, as if to confirm that I had learned my lesson, they sent us another one. We were in the kitchen with my sister-in-law and her two-year-old, making dinner, when my wife came and said, Can we talk for a minute? pulling me to the bedroom. She led me to our bathroom, and right there on the sink top were two tests. I looked at them and then at her, but si the doctor said this can’t happen for another two months?

He said it was rare. Not impossible.

I didn’t exclaim in excitement like I had done for Joy. I kept my glee beneath the hairs of my chest. Scared of inviting the wrath of the gods again because Nyasachiel mirima ohinga. Third pregnancy in a year. There is a way in which losing two children back to back sucks the joy out of the third one. I said to myself I would not announce it. Keep it to ourselves. I have neither a Pinterest board for maternity shoot ideas nor inspiration treatment for a baby shower. This time I didn’t even download that damn Baby Center app.

***

Last month, when at a work dinner, oceans away from home, and someone decided that perhaps it was a good time to know each other, guys took turns introducing themselves and their families. Some asking us to guess how many children they look like they had. When they got to me, I jokingly said, I have no living children that I know of. I wondered if the deception was written on my face. If they could look and tell how many I’ve actually had.

Maybe by pushing it to the back of my mind, it would arrive not just in my heart, but in my arms as well. So, I treated my delight the way my father treated his grief.

Until the other day.

The weather people had said this time the rain would pour with one heart and cause floods. The Nairobi Governor bought boats to in anticipation. Prices of gumboots, raincoats and umbrellas had started nearing the treetops. But instead of the storm, we only had trickles. Like the clouds had suddenly inflamed their prostates.

And as I drove atop the new double decker road, it appeared behind the clouds and the dull sunset. Like oil spilled on a wet tarmac. So faint, if you weren’t looking, you wouldn’t see it behind the shutting eye of a tired sun. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign or a warning, but from it a name leapt into my mind, and however much I try to shake it off, I cannot.

Which brings me to this story. I am writing this for the record that it is not my fault this time, and if the juogi of Karuoth come for my baby this time, then let them explain the justice. I have kept my head down and my mouth shut for fifteen weeks. Most importantly, though, I wasn’t thinking of names. I wouldn’t even have written all this, but I need everyone to know the truth. That I was just minding my business driving that evening, when they plucked it from the evening sky and planted it in me.

Lihudu.

Just like me.

However, I don’t know what this means. They can’t use it against me. Can they? If they do, I will not accept it, and if I do, then I am no longer Magunga K’oduor.

Wawinjre awinja kamaler, joKaruoth. Wang’ni dipo ka ubiro fwalo mae, to nyaka uful na ni anto nakoso nu kanye. To ka tek, to en mana lweny. Ka tek to kare anbe ukawa bas. Wadhi adhia waduto.

[This was written on October 31st 2023 after watching this conversation by Kambua and Nessy. I didn’t have an outlet besides writing, so I sat down and typed this, then kept it away till now. Lihudu arrived six months later- ten fingers, ten toes, and the anxiety of having him with us still exists, but only as a faint itch. He is trying to walk now, and trying to sleep on his cot. Nessy also welcomed her own little Lee a little over a week ago. Her husband, Alvin, is my fitness coach – but to be honest, all those planks, deadlifts and bear crawls are nothing compared to trying to keep up with Lihudu.

Soon he, too, will find out. ]