It did not hit me until I was well into the Uhuru Park walk way how nice I felt. It was dusk and the lights within the park had come on. The fast dimming lights of the fading day still illuminated the lush well cut grass and as I passed the jogger who always does a brisk run in the evening at the park – he lives somewhere near the Serena, i found out.
It was as i was going around the Nyayo monument, that I understood. I felt nice because I felt related to someone.
If I could just go back one step. I had just had coffee (well, chocolate milkshake) with a young man, just a little older than me and during the “coffee”, I realised that I shared so much with him – We both like choc shakes, we both are thoroughly business-minded and it struck me in a big way how much alike we were.
We are just getting to know each other as we met not too long ago under really bad circumstances. We had both lost a primary individual (our father) in our lives, which until then, had gone parallel to each other – with little likelihood of interaction.
And so, there we were seated in a coffee shop chatting and finding each other and finding our father in each other.
That for me was powerful. It simply said to me, I am related to him.
I had always looked for my father – and now, after his death, i am getting to know him – through my brother (that feels strange to say – my brother – and yet it is strangely liberating).
What was interesting was that I spoke to my dad soon after that (my step-father, who’s always been there with me all through) and he asked how I was adjusting to my father’s death and when i was coming home.
I feel like I belong somewhere. That, my friends, is the height of security.