We met when I was twenty-three. He came into my life at a time when it would have been very unwise to let his kind follow me home. However, I didn't know that he had followed me home until his stay was too obvious even for those looking in from the outside.
His fight to stay is what tells me that he is the most defiant of his kind. No one wanted him from day one. Sadly not even I.
And though we went on to iron out our issues later on and I became his home, I have never forgiven myself for having to be coerced into accepting his timing and love.
When we both lost parts of ourselves a decade ago, I got lost in my loss that I almost looked over his. Then I recalled how he kept me alive when we weathered heavy blows together and retraced my selfishness.
It is what he had to go through after all that that keeps me up at night at times. He would lose me too for almost two years and during those days he would be severely emotionally abused and also had to endure some physical abuse all while being denied food.
He was constantly running away from the said home and spending most of his time with homeless people or street children. A lot happened to him then and he is finding ways to finally open up about it.
~I am yet to even look into the possibility of forgiving myself for that and I hate talking about it.
When I was returning, the light in his eyes had long dimmed and his feeble arms had forgotten love. I remember him clinging onto my disoriented self and I could feel life reigniting itself deep within my living dead.
After our sentence apart we had to fight our way back to each other again as his arms slowly turned into my lost home and mine reminded him of his.
He may be the only one who has seen the well of my tears amongst his kind and probably among the entire human race. His fast hands might be the only ones that have ever managed to have gotten to my trickling tears before my own.
He has loved me through my worst. Reassured my sceptical mind more times than I want to admit but above all, he has been more than my initially not so accommodating self could imagine.
He has been more than a friend and more like my safe space.
We disagree, yes. Periodically. My old man used to say that two axes put in the same basket will always crash. But this has also fostered a room for our voices to be heard and upon that a solid relationship has been built.
With that said, being that we met on a day like this, I have chosen to celebrate my now healing gentle giant. It has been a genuine honour to have such a resilient soul choose me as his vessel and later have him help me heal this vessel.
Named after a great man, his name bears the meaning of a chief, gentle Lord, council friend and leader, all qualities I'd associate him with. What a ride it has been!
Here is to a lifetime of many more... And his fifteenth birthday.
wambuku w.